Changing the Future with Technology!
by SparkleHands
Summary: The Saviorite Rebels attacked the First Low Orbit Station in a desperate last minute bid to seize victory from the jaws of defeat. During the attack Brandon Hunter led the charge against the Empire. However, the Rebellion started losing and in order to escape certain death, he took a cryogenic life pod. Now he's stuck three thousand years in the future in a world unfamiliar to him.
1. Free At Last

Chapter 1: Free at Last

**I got a case of writer's block on my main story so I'm giving this story a full rewrite, after the last one had an absolute gem of a human being flame the crap out of it. I think that my writing has improved over the last couple of months, so we'll give this another shot. Technically it's going to have Xenoblade stuff in it but it's more like I'm making the universes share origins so it's not technically a crossover? I'm not actually sure how to classify it right now so I'm going to just put it as RWBY for now and if enough people think it should be a crossover I can go back and change it. **

**One off for now but I will continue this… I just don't know when.**

….

He had been found in a metal cylinder locked away in a wooden crate in the back of some storage facility. Released from his metal coffin, Brandon looked around blearily for the first time in… well he didn't really know. He stood up then immediately staggered and fell to his knees, his muscles having degraded even in cryogenic sleep.

He felt a pair of sturdy hands help him to his feet. A look of surprise fluttered over his face to see that his savior was, well, a man, though he couldn't tell his age. If it weren't for the silver hair he would look like he was in his twenties. He could see the man moving his lips, talking to him, but he just couldn't process the words.

Instead, Brandon chose to ignore him and turn back to his pod, a lifesaver turned into a technological nightmare. The older man raised an eyebrow but seemed content to simply watch. He pressed a palm into a specific location, known only by him. The other eyebrow raised on the stranger as he watched a green dot blink to life on the otherwise lifeless metal cylinder. Brandon knelt to type in several commands then to read the information that popped up on the screen. He immediately fell in shock: three thousand years have passed since the fateful attack on the First Low Orbit Station.

His world was dead and a new one stood as its Remnant. The stranger recognized the reaction as something bad and knelt to read the panel himself. He didn't quite understand the jargon on the screen but knew that whatever that number was saying was bad.

He helped the shell-shocked teen to his feet and guided him to an elevator. He hit a button to the first floor and Brandon felt the elevator jerk under his feet, revealing to him that the room was in fact a basement.

He was helped to walk through the corridors and finally through the doors that led outside. Brandon lightly brushed the other man's arms off of him and stumbled to the stairs and sat down. The first words out of him, "why the fuck does the moon look like that?"

* * *

"Cookie?" The man now known to Brandon as Ozpin offered.

"Sure," Brandon took one from the offered plate.

"Are you feeling well enough to have a conversation now?"

Brandon nodded.

"Well, I was going to ask you where you come from," he sighed as he leaned forward, "but I am most curious as to what you meant by, ahem, 'why the fuck does the moon look like that,' although I feel as if the answers to the two questions will be one and the same."

Brandon sighed, "where to start?" he paused to take a bite out of the cookie, "these are really good by the way," he put a finger on his chin, "okay, do you have a map of the world handy by any chance?"

Ozpin pulled out a small, smartphone-like, device from his pocket and entered in a couple of words into a keypad. He handed Brandon the device who immediately scanned over it.

"Do you happen to have an extra?" Brandon asked, "one that I can break apart and rebuild?"

"Do what you wish with that one," he said, almost uncaring.

"Are you sure?"

"It's disposable I assure you."

Brandon nodded and quickly got to work. Within several minutes he had the entire device deconstructed, the tools within his nano-tech wristband proving to be extremely helpful. Good thing that they still used flat head screwdrivers. Ozpin watched the device with mild interest as it took shape again in Brandon's hands.

"There," he placed the device, well, the smartphone that he was familiar with, on the table.

"This is a map of the world three thousand years ago," he pulled up the map that Ozpin had showed him, "compared to now," he fiddled with the phone some more. "I find it extremely unlikely that a continental shift this large can happen in this short a time without some kind of cataclysmic event going down. Of course the same could be said about the moon."

"Interesting," was the only thing Ozpin had to say. His eyes seemed to imply continue.

"Okay… so, I don't know how society here works but I'm from one from three thousand years ago. The greatest nation in the world was the United States of America…" he sighed, "a country that was a democratic republic. A nation that overcame its mistakes and strived to improve. Until the first dictator showed up. He posed as a fair, just president and he won the election by a landslide. But then he proved to be the opposite of what he claimed to be, stooping to even assassinations if anyone dared to oppose him. The people protested at first, until the first security bots showed up, blasting the crowds with concentrated microwaves to make them feel like they were on fire. The nation slowly changed until eventually the people were too afraid, for both themselves and their families, to speak out. The nation eventually turned into the Solar Empire, an empire that reached to the stars, in greed and power."

He paused, having lost himself deeply in the past he had nearly forgotten Ozpin's presence. Even now as he spoke he was staring off to some space above his head.

"Then the Saviorite rebels showed up, a group dedicated to restoring justice and democracy in the former nation. A full scale war broke out across the nation, becoming the Second Civil War."

"What was the first?"

Brandon raised an eyebrow at the question, "that's the only question you have?"

He shrugged, "I'm curious is all."

"That was hundreds of years before the second," he said, "it was to end slavery."

"Slavery, how appalling," Ozpin said, "I have bore witness to many such unfortunate events."

"Hm, well you don't look that old," Brandon decided to continue, "anyways, believe it or not, I wasn't originally in the rebellion."

"Then where were you?"

"Figuring my life out," he sighed, "I was considered a child prodigy, so therefore I was dangerous to the Empire and to be locked away. That was mostly a result of having a father whose father was a professor. I learned a lot, more than I was supposed to know anyways. But I also was still a kid and also had no common sense. I would have probably continued my life without ever even considering the Empire as the enemy if it weren't for a single teacher discovering that I was learning old physics. This wouldn't have been so bad if the old physicists also had some pretty interesting views on philosophy."

"So I went on the run, but I couldn't just stop learning and creating," he shook his head slightly, "it's just not in my nature to stop. So I continued developing my ideas and knowledge. I eventually found refuge at a hidden university, one that the Empire didn't crush underfoot. Except, as it turns out, it had been. They accepted me with open arms and I continued my research and learning. I had developed an interest in energy based physics and so I devoted a year to creating an energy generator. But as it turns out the Empire was actually using me to create a weapon. Once I was finished, the people I thought my friends turned on me and took my tech, turned it into a weapon. That was when I seeked out the rebellion and joined."

Ozpin stared but Brandon seemed to be done.

"That's quite the story Mr. Hunter," Ozpin finally said, "you seemed to have had quite the difficult life. May I ask how old you are?"

"Seventeen," Brandon crossed his arms, "most of that happened between fifteen and now… or well, now back then, three thousand years ago."

"I see," Ozpin linked his hands in front of his mouth, "so you are from the time before…"

"Wait," Brandon leaned forward, intrigued for the first time,"you don't think I'm insane?"

"No Mr. Hunter, I do not," he smiled, "in fact I believe every word." Ozpin paused, "I have been looking for someone like you for a long time as i think you may be the solution to my problem, as both I and my problem comes from this time before."

Brandon stared, "what do you mean by that?"

"I mean, Mr. Hunter, that I, while having no memory, have significant evidence to make me believe that my real name is Klaus, the person to have ended your… our world."

Brandon was rendered speechless. And he thought he would be the one surprising Ozpin.

"So your problem…"

"Well you seem to be taking this in stride," Ozpin sounded mildly impressed.

"I want to know everything before I start barraging you with questions."

"Fair enough. My problem's name is Salem. I believe her to be Galea."

"Klaus and Galea huh," he gave a low whistle as he leaned back, "two of the top Imperial scientists. How are you still alive?"

"Well, as you can probably tell, the world you're in right now is very different from the one you knew," he sighed, "this world is one that honestly might be worse than the one you left. It is overrun by creatures called Grimm."

"Okay?"

"They are terrible creatures, uneeding of any nourishment and are attracted to negativity. Normal humans stand no chance of defeating one. That's why I founded this school: the Huntsman academy, Beacon. Huntsmen and huntresses are the protectors of this world, keeping people safe from the Grimm."

"You seem strangely willing to tell me all of this."

"Well the Grimm and huntsmen are only common knowledge, but yes, I am telling you something that very few know. My request of you is for you to join this huntsman academy. Learn to combat the Grimm and help me defeat Salem."

"Why do you need my help and what exactly has she done?"

"You are aware of the conduit yes?"

Brandon nodded.

"Well it appears to have left this world, but not before gifting the two survivors of the old world with some of its power. Salem, on top of her power and immortality, has the ability to both control and summon Grimm, or absolute power over the monsters."

"Immortality?"

"Yes. She is unable to age."

"So you're immortal as well?"

"Yes, in a sense," Ozpin nodded, "I am immortal by transferring to a different body when my current one is killed or dies."

"A different body? Like another person?"

"Yes," Ozpin sighed, "it is an extremely strenuous process on everyone involved."

"Wait, so you just take control of someone else's body?"

"It is not intentional," Ozpin looked slightly ashamed, "it is almost like a curse. I cannot stop it from happening. However, if it makes you feel any better it is with a like minded individual, leading to our collective consciousness eventually becoming one."

Brandon narrowed his eyes, "I still don't like it."

"And I don't blame you. But we must stop Salem for the sake of this world."

Brandon glared for another second before he relented, "fine then. To save the world."

* * *

One year later, one day before Beacon's initiation and the day Beacon students would be arriving.

"For the last time Ironwood," Brandon said in exasperation, "I'm not going to join your military R and D team. And don't get started on the whole benefits and logic thing. I've told you why."

Ironwood sighed, "it was worth another shot. Beacon starts in a few days correct? I wish you the best of luck."

"Thanks," Brandon said, "I'm sure it'll go well."

He slumped in relief as Ironwood left the lounge. He knew it was stupid. Atlas wasn't the Solar Empire yet he couldn't help but compare the two. He knew that it would be logical to help develop technology to fight the Grimm. But this was the one time he knew he couldn't act on logic alone. He was only human after all.

He couldn't forget about the army of drones, robots, and other mechanical monstrosities in orbit above them. Over the past year he had done his research, fully funded by Beacon. With access to Beacon's vast resources and wealth he was able to find out more about the past and what was left of his world. The first low orbit station was surprisingly mostly intact and functional. That also led him to learn that its military arsenal was also still fully functional with hundreds of Artifices and tens of thousands of mechanized soldiers, almost like what Atlas was developing. Of course he chose not to reveal this to anyone, despite his promise to Ozpin to tell him all that he learned. He also swore to never use the arsenal unless the end of the world situation really did occur.

He had managed to hack the network, learning that most of the internet was actually still intact. And Remnant's scientists wondered why it was so hard to connect with radio waves without the CCT system. The sheer interference matrix generated by the massive internet array would completely mess with anything else that tried to be created. This fact he did reveal to Ozpin who tried to relay this to engineers and scientists, most of whom didn't believe that a now eighteen year old could be smarter than them. The few who did believe didn't have the resources to be able to initiate such a wide spread change, so the CCT remained. Ozpin did manage to extract a promise from Brandon to develop more of the old world's smartphones to be given to a few trusted individuals.

He had also spent a good chunk of his time learning about the hunters, developing what he needed to blend in. As many huntsmen and huntresses used a combination of melee and ranged weapons he decided to make his own that would suit his more, well, brute force fighting style. He lacked the equipment to fully put together military armor from his era so he opted to go for a completely different route.

He decided to go for speed rather than tankiness, as it seemed like anything less than the old world armor wouldn't offer much in protection against the powerful Grimm. So he shed any semblance of armor, choosing instead to equip himself with a set of thick gauntlets that housed a multitude of gadgets and weapons. As an added bonus, more to entertain himself than anything, he added an electric feature. He also decided to try to replicate aura, though that was much more difficult as he couldn't just use a force field, the hexagonal hemisphere around him would probably be a dead giveaway. He did manage to get the force field to wrap around his body at about a centimeter off, which was as good as he could get it without risking injury from lag time. He also muted the hexagonal effect but as the force field technology functioned by creating hexagonal plates of energy, he couldn't make it totally invisible.

And with this, he was ready for initiation. He grunted, closing his laptop as he stood up and slipped it into the slot in his backpack. He slung the bag over his shoulder and started walking toward the exit. He hesitated at the door, already seeing students pouring into the courtyard and to the amphitheater where he knew Ozpin was waiting to greet the new students. He honestly had half a mind to skip it but knew that Ozpin would easily single him out. Just because he was a special student didn't mean that he could be exempt from the rules.

He pushed through the doors, and immediately bumped into a pair.

"Oh shit," he cursed, "sorry about that," he extended both his hands to help the pair to their feet.

"You're all good," the boy said. Brandon gave him a look before shrugging it off. His entire outfit was blue and in a weird style as well. A form fitting suit of light blue armor covered him from head to toe, although without sleeves. He had what looked like a grappling hook on his left wrist and a massive red sword strapped to his back.

"We're fine, thank you," the girl responded. She was clad in mostly red and that was all that registered before he blushed and averted his eyes up.

"I really am sorry" Brandon said sheepishly, "it's my fault. I was in a hurry and wasn't paying attention." He refocused on the boy, deciding that to focus on him rather than trying to avert his eyes from the girls… revealing outfit.

"You seem kind of young to be at Beacon."

"That's because I am," he said proudly, "I'm fifteen, but I was admitted early."

Interesting, Ozpin hadn't told him that was possible.

"Huh," Brandon tapped his chin, "I'm actually kind of old at eighteen."

The boy laughed, "well it's nice to meet you old man. My name's Rex," he held out his hand.

Brandon shook it, "name's Brandon."

"My name's Pyra," the girl said, extending her hand and Brandon turned to shake it as well.

"So you two are…"

"Friends!" Rex cut him off, "we're just friends."

Pyra rolled her eyes, "he thinks that people will target him if he says I'm his girlfriend."

"You're his girlfriend?"

"Hey!"

"That's not what I meant," Brandon laughed for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, "she looks a lot older than you."

Pyra crossed her arms with a sigh, "I get that a lot but I'm only seventeen."

"Huh," Brandon raised an eyebrow, "if I didn't know any better I would have thought you were in your early twenties."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Brandon gulped, realizing just how bad that might have sounded to a girl.

"Uh anyways," he said, quickly changing the topic, "you two know where you're heading?"

"Well…" Rex put a hand on his neck with embarrassment.

"We're lost," Pyra finished for him, "if you could be kind enough to direct us in the right way."

"Right," he gestured, "I'll take you there myself, we're heading to the same place anyway."

"Right," she coughed.

Brandon started laughing with Rex, Pyra joining in a moment later as they walked to the stage together.

* * *

When they arrived, Brandon said his goodbyes before slinking off to a more secluded section in the back, already knowing what Ozpin had prepared he immediately zoned out, thinking of what had just happened.

It was his paranoia talking, he knew that, but he didn't want to trust so easily. Ozpin was fine as he had been the one to bring him back from the dead and was upfront with exactly what he wanted, no ulterior motive. What could be worse than battling a god-like being? Plus he had met the others in Ozpin's inner circle, no deceit there, although the fact that Leonardo Lionheart was never present in person was interesting.

But Rex and Pyra were complete unknowns to him. They seemed cool enough but at the same time he just felt like he couldn't trust them, despite how illogical it was. They were people admitted to Beacon meaning that they passed extensive exams and background checks.

"Hey," he felt someone tap his shoulder.

"Huh- what?"

"Ozpin's speech ended a couple of minutes ago. Just wanted to give you a heads up."

"Oh, uh, thanks," he mumbled, looking up to see a blonde girl waving a hand in his face.

"It's all good," she said, "I zoned out hard as well. Kinda boring wasn't it."

"Eh," he shrugged, "why are you still here?"

"Oh? I was waiting for my sister," she jabbed a thumb in the direction of a girl dressed in a deep red and black, unlike the lighter color that Pyra wore, who was exchanging some… harsh words with some other girl dressed completely in white.

Brandon rolled his eyes at the scene, choosing instead to wander off to the hall the entire freshman class was going to use as a dorm for the night.

Unlike every other student, he already knew Beacon like the back of his hand so rather than exploring he decided to brush his teeth and turn in for the night.

He settled into his sleeping bag and pulled out his laptop and schematics for a last minute weapon.

He had always been a fan of energy based weapons, from light based to electricity to plasma. But what had always been the coolest was the idea of a laser sword.

Star Wars, of course, had been censored. But was a massive source of entertainment to the rebellion. Despite that it was a purely fictional story, many still drew inspiration from a small rebellion overcoming massive odds against a technologically superior Empire.

A light saber. It was considered something stupid back in the war, something completely ineffective... but now? It might prove to be an extremely effective weapon.

Of course that would only be if he could figure out how to limit the laser's distance, of which he was still struggling with.

"What's that?" a voice asked from behind him. Brandon quickly tabbed over to a different window. Good thing he had the mind to open up Star Wars before hand.

"Oh it's just a movie," he glanced back to see a flash of blue.

"Cool," Rex said, "what's it called?"

"Star Wars."

"Never heard of it. What's it about?"

Of course he's never heard of it. It was a masterpiece created millennia ago.

Brandon gave a wide grin. Screw his insecurity, tonight he would let someone new experience a work of art.

* * *

"Damn that was good," Rex stretched as he stood up.

Pyra, having joined the two a couple of minutes into the movie, did the same.

"Thanks for showing this to us!" Pyra agreed.

"No prob," Brandon replied easily as he tossed the pair a disk, which apparently they used even in Remnant, "that's a playlist of the entire series."

"Cool!" Rex said as he caught the disk.

Pyra giggled, "we'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," he gave the couple a lazy two finger salute as they meandered off. Well, he may not have got much done that night but at least he had fun. He rolled over to get to sleep but right as he started to drift off he was awoken by the sound of arguing.

He turned over and covered his ears with his pillow, hoping to absorb some of the noise but eventually it grew too annoying for even him. He stood up as the arguing was happening close by, "can you keep it down?" he glared, "some of us are trying to get some sleep!"

"Eep!"

Oh. It was the girls from earlier.

"You just can't keep away from me I see," the blonde teased.

Brandon just rolled his eyes, "hot as you are, you're not really my type. I just want you to get your sister and… whoever you are, to shut up."

"Whoever I am?!" the girl in white said indignantly, "I am Weiss Schnee! Heiress to the Schnee Dust Comp-"

"Look lady-"

"Lady?!"

"I don't care who you are," Brandon continued, ignoring her, "but you're literally acting like every adult who tries to quiet others by being louder than the ones creating the noise."

"B-but these two were-"

"They would have stopped quickly," Brandon pinched the bridge of his nose, "you're just adding fuel to the little spark. Please, I just want to get some sleep."

He smiled and nodded politely at the black haired faunus sitting on the ground, "sorry about that, hope I didn't disrupt you too much." He turned around and walked back to his sleeping bag.

He sighed as he settled in for the night, and his new life.

….

**Well this was fun to write. Re-imagining my original story but actually changing up story elements and plot. And adding some Xenoblade stuff because Xenoblade is awesome. I still don't know if it should be a crossover though.**

**Idk if they actually shared one larger hall in the actual show but eh, Beacon is essentially college for huntsmen so it's not like they're going to care too much if it's co-ed or not.**

**Edit: Hopefully this doesn't ping all of you or something. I just realized how stupid I was accidentally putting in the name Meyneth instead of Galea.**


	2. Getting Started

Chapter 2: Getting Started

**Ugh college is killing me. Of course being the responsible college student I am… I procrastinated on all of my assignments and fanfiction. **

**I have ultimately decided that this should be a crossover, especially as I do world building in the future. Wink wink.**

….

Brandon sighed in content as he dug into a steaming bowl of rice. He was so glad so many crops, animals, and foods carried over from the past or he probably would be suffering without his daily fix of rice. It did make sense as humanity had apparently just been reset, not destroyed. Though, that was weird to him. The cataclysm caused by the Conduit should have ended all life. Whatever, not like he was there to witness it. Damn coward that he was, jumping into an escape pod while the soldiers slaughtered each other.

It really was amazing what humans were capable of. The technological progress here was only slightly behind his world, a century, maybe even a couple of decades later and they would be on par. Though he did wonder many times over the past year as to why exactly current humans hadn't turned their eyes toward space like their ancestors had. Then again their ancestor's only enemy had been themselves, alongside the dwindling resources on the Earth, of course.

That was an issue that humanity did a little to fix, the top Imperial scientists having created both a small moon base and Mars colony as well as asteroid mining operations. They also had experimental reactors designed to rearrange, or well, attempt to rearrange atom's structures to be able to create whatever resources they needed by just messing around with some greenhouse gasses.

But alas the project never came to fruition, the assault on the space elevator happening way before the project could be completed. It was a shame really, the Empire could have been so great but it failed spectacularly, falling for the same old flaw that plagued every empire the world had seen, the corruption of power and the unbridled greed of human beings.

Well, no need to be concerned with any of that anymore. It was all in the past, three thousand years in the past.

Time to focus on the present, and on the future.

Initiation would be in just a couple of hours. He just hoped that he would get some decent teammates. Rex and Pyra seemed cool enough but the chances of that in a class of over four hundred… weren't great.

"Hey!" A familiar voice called. Brandon looked up. "You done brooding?" Rex sat down with his own breakfast, Pyra right next to him.

"I wasn't brooding," he complained, "I was… thinking about the past."

"Sorry man," Rex said as he shoveled food into his mouth, "totally counts as brooding."

"Oh it does, does it?" he laughed, "then what do you call an annoying little kid?"

"Wha- oi!"

"He's got you there," Pyra giggled.

"What? That's how you're supposed to make friends! By talking to people!"

"I'm messing with you."

"We're friends right?"

Brandon made a face like he was considering it, "hmmm, yeah sure."

"Yes!" he gave a fist pump.

Brandon and Pyra laughed.

"I like you kid. Bright eyed and optimistic, you don't see that much anymore."

"I like having faith in the world," he smirked, "besides, I believe in helping people. That's why Pyra and I want to be huntsmen."

"Well I can see that you're not as jaded as I am."

"You're not here to help people?"

"Oh I am," Brandon chuckled, "but probably not the same way you want to."

"How do you-?"

"Don't ask. Not really willing to explain it."

"But-"

Pyra nudged him, "Rex, leave it alone."

"Right, sorry," he rubbed his neck sheepishly, "I tend to do that a lot. I try to change people."

"Look kid," Brandon rolled his eyes with a smile, "you've gotta have some stupid powerful words to change someone. Words can get them to think but probably won't change them as a person. I do appreciate it though. It's nice to know there's still some hope."

"Attention students," he looked up to Glyda Goodwitch's voice booming over the PA system, "report to the training field for initiation."

"Well then, you guys ready?"

"Always."

* * *

"Shit!" Brandon exclaimed as he was launched into the air. He had zoned out again during another one of Ozpin's speeches and was unprepared for the launchpad that flung him and the other students into the sky.

He readjusted himself in the air as he activated his jump pack to adjust his trajectory through the air and slow his descent.

"Oh shit shit shit shit!" he yelled as he rocketed toward an Elder Grimm, only having spotted it at the last moment. He slammed into the bear like Grimm's back and collapsed into a heap on the ground.

"Oi watch yourself bloody idiot!" A distinctly Welsh voice yelled.

"Huh, didn't know that Welsh accents were still a thing," he grumbled to himself as he dodged out of the way of a paw swung at his head. He grunted and clutched his midsection, a rib had definitely broken in the impact.

The source of the voice was a shorter Faunus girl. A cat, if the ears were any indication. Her silver hair was cut short and seemed to merge with her ears. Her outfit was an odd yellow jumpsuit but then again, it seemed like every huntsman wore a weird outfit.

"Shit!" Brandon cried as he rolled out of the way of the lumbering Grimm. He hissed in pain and hunched over.

"Oh for the love of…" the female Faunus looked about ready to strangle him as she dodged out of the way of the Elder Grimm. She held up a hand and a blue light swirled around it. The same light surrounded Brandon who grimaced as he felt his rib shift and pop back into place.

"Now be useful," she yelled as she slashed her twin rings against the hide of the beast.

"R-right!" Brandon got to his feet and immediately rocketed around the Grimm, pulling out a high powered rifle and started peppering the beast with magnetically accelerated rounds which penetrated easily and slammed into trees behind the monster.

Individually the bullets didn't look like they did much to hurt the thing but definitely contributed to wearing it out, giving the silver haired Faunus the chance to spin up the energy on her rings and reach under its guard and stab a ring into its chest and pushed it all the way through, killing it.

She hooked the rings onto her belt and planted her hands on her knees as she panted in exhaustion.

"Have you never been to any kind of combat school before?" she glared at him, "most high schoolers would have Aura down to an instinct."

"Uh no," Brandon admitted, "my Aura was actually unlocked pretty recently so I don't have much experience." He winced, he should have had the force field activated the moment he got on the pad.

"Oh great!" she exclaimed sarcastically, "my partner for at _least _the next four years is an absolute novice! How the hell did you even make it into this school?"

"I've obviously had some combat experience," he retorted. If this was how his partner was, he didn't know if he could survive for the next four years.

"I'm here on Ozpin's personal recommendation."

"You?" she looked at him incredulously, "you have Ozpin's personal recommendation? You must be one of those Atlesian idiots with nothing but tech and a thick skull."

"I'm not from Atlas," Brandon rolled his eyes, "I'm… I was a student. Then I got drafted into the Vale defense corps. Ozpin learned of me pretty soon after and brought me in as a student," he explained, sticking to the story that Ozpin had constructed.

"How is that any better? That might actually be worse if you don't have any actual experience."

"Are you saying that you have experience?" Brandon shot back, "you were a student then I assume who also has little to no experience."

"Please. You think I'm going to spill my life story to you?" She rolled her eyes, "no I was never a student at one of the high schools. I've lived through much more than you could possibly imagine."

"I don't know, I can imagine a fair bit," he grumbled under his breath.

"Well?" she huffed, "let's get moving, we only have so long to finish this."

"Of course," he put on the most British accent he could muster, sarcasm absolutely dripping from his voice, "milady."

"Oh what? You upset because you can't make an actual comeback?"

"Look lady," Brandon clenched his teeth, trying to not give in to his anger any more than he already had, "we don't even know each other's names. You can't expect me to be okay with you railing on me when we haven't even had introductions."

"Right," she flushed red but for once not out of anger, "my name is Nia, don't wear it out."

Brandon shook it gruffly, "no last name?"

She shook her head.

"Hmph. Okay then, I'm Brandon Hunter. Nice to meetcha."

"Well then, Brandon, you had better not disappoint."

* * *

"That wasn't so bad," Brandon said as he rolled his shoulders, unused to the recoil without armor buffering between the stock and his shoulder. He felt his pocket to make sure that the artifact was still there. A small model of the conduit. He knew why but _why?_ Ozpin was so weird.

"Mmh," Nia simply grumbled in response.

Well, at least she wasn't actively insulting him now. They had made some progress but Grimm hindered them every step of the way. It was truly a wonder why. Even he could feel the hostility radiating off of Nia. He decided not to take it personally. It seemed like she would have been like this no matter who she ended up with as a partner. At the very least he could tolerate it. There probably weren't many who could.

"Could you at least try to be less disgruntled?" Brandon pleaded, "your negativity is drawing every damn Grimm in the forest toward us."

"Oh yeah, because it's totally easy to flip emotions on a damn dime."

"What? You don't know how to mask your emotions?"

"Mask emotions?"

Aha! Something she wasn't stuck up about. "Well duh. I've avoided attracting Grimm for the most part by masking my emotions. Trick I picked up about a year ago," he smirked, "frankly I thought you would have known about a technique like that."

"Wait, you're not messing with me are you?"

"Why would I lie about something like this?" He argued, "believe it or not, it's a relatively easy trick to learn. I'll bet that a decent number of initiates already know about this."

"No wonder," Nia grumbled, obviously talking to herself but Brandon couldn't help but overhear, "that arse probably knew this entire time but never told me."

Unable to take any more of the negative attitude Brandon let out a loud sigh, drawing the attention of Nia. He gave her a genuine smile as he didn't want to spend the next four years hating his partner, "look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here. Why don't I fix my first impression by teaching you?"

"How to mask my presence from the Grimm?"

"Yeah."

"Alright then."

"Cool. So uh, the basic principle is similar to being able to conjure up emotions. Like for example, for me, one thought about the Grimm is enough to draw out anger over those they've killed. Or the opposite, I think about nature, specifically the oceans, to calm myself and focus the mind."

She gave him a dry look, "so all it is, is just think about something else?"

"No, obviously it's not that simple or the Grimm wouldn't be the problem they are right now."

Well… that wasn't fully true. For him, that was all he needed. But for everyone else in Remnant… they needed to do a little more.

As a tangent, Aura was honestly more trouble than it was worth. As a scientist, yes it was fascinating. But at the same time it slowed down technological progress and scientific growth. He was loathe to admit it but a great many technological developments were achieved through military research and spending. Aura made people complicit with the flawed huntsman system. They used Dust powered firearms for crying out loud! Or something like the bullhead. If it weren't for the fact that they were truly omnidirectional he would consider them to be more primitive and as useless as World War I fighters would be in the modern era. At least those planes could be used in a dogfight against flying Grimm and strafe land based fighters.

Then again, he supposed that this was inevitable as Ozpin had orchestrated a large portion of how Remnant functioned.

He probably could have done something about the underwhelming tech if it weren't for two things: his morals, and even if his morals didn't block him, politics would. It would be a diplomatic nightmare if he was caught developing weapons for a specific nation as he technically didn't exist and therefore belonged to no nation. Of course there was Ozpin to throw his weight around but best not to destroy the brittle peace between the nations. There was also Menagerie to consider. The White Fang would guarantee to use him as another reason to oppose humans. Ironwood didn't seem to get the message but that was understandable as the man just wanted what was best for his nation.

He shook his head, refocusing as Nia started to look at him weird.

"Sorry. Zoned out for a second there."

"You seem to do that a lot," she snarked.

"Tsk, anyways. Aura is the main reason why you can't just think about happy thoughts. It's very intent based so just because you're thinking about happier times doesn't mean that the Grimm will suddenly leave you alone."

"What? You're suddenly the expert on Aura?"

Brandon flushed, "do you want me to help you or not?"

Nia rolled her eyes and mock zipped her mouth.

"Ugh. You know what? You've lowered my standards enough. I'll take it. I'm a scientist first and foremost. I understand Aura well even if I'm not an expert at using it," he heaved a sigh, almost like one that an adult would give after dealing with an annoying child, "you want to give it a shot? At least the basics so that the Grimm will stop focusing us?"

"I guess I'll give it a shot," she closed her eyes and concentrated.

"Focus on something that makes you calm or relaxed or happy," if anything could even make that girl happy, "flush out anything that draws out negative emotions."

"It would help if you would shut up," she growled.

"Shutting up."

Brandon took a step back, giving Nia some space. He tapped his foot, an unconscious habit, one that he developed in his studies, a result of staring at smart boards for hours trying to solve a problem. A lull went through the forest. He thought nothing of it at first but he noticed that the birds had stopped chirping

"Uh, Nia?"

"Zip it."

"Nia?"

"What part of shut up do you not understand?"

"Nia!"

"What?!" She snapped as she reopened her eyes with fury. Before Brandon could even say anything her ears twitched.

"Damn it," she immediately broke into a sprint, shoving Brandon forward.

"What is it?" He asked, matching her pace.

"Deathstalker."

"What?!"

"I said Deathstalker!"

"I heard you!" He shouted, "but what the hell were you thinking about to get that thing to chase us?!"

"Oh I'm sorry I haven't exactly had the perfect life!" She yelled sarcastically, "most of my memories are laced with something negative which is why I wanted you to let me focus!"

"And attract even more Grimm? No thank you. You're practicing within the safety net of the school."

"Just shut up and run you blithering idiot!"

"That's not going to make me run any faster!"

"Hey!" Brandon pointed, "there are people over there!" Wait. Blue and red.

"Rex! Pyra! There's a freaking Death Stalker!"

"A what?!" the pair joined up with Brandon and Nia, "where is it?"

"Ask her, she can hear it."

"It's a kilometer back," Nia informed, "I can tell it's following us."

"A kilometer? Wait, hold up, slow down!" he exclaimed as he slowed to a walk.

"Look…"

"Its Nia."

"Look Nia, if it's a kilometer back we should start planning on how to deal with it now rather than just sprinting for it."

"Dude, I think a Grimm of that calibre is slightly out of our league. I don't care how good you two work together but we haven't worked together, the four of us, ever."

"So?"

"So we'd trip over each other fighting it."

"Well the two of us can take it on, we've fought scarier. You two can sit this one out."

"Right, like I'm going to let others tell me what to do," Nia crossed her arms.

"Jeez what's your problem lady?" Rex snapped, "I'm saying that's the most logical course of action."

"I'm not going to let someone I don't know delegate me to the sidelines. I'm tired of that just because I can heal people!"

"Aren't you supposed to-"

"Shut your mouth! You don't know anything about me."

"But your semblance-"

"It's control over water."

"Wait wha-"

"That's exactly what I mean!" She growled, "you don't know anything about me. We're running."

"Fuck," Brandon cursed, "I think we might have a more immediate problem."

"What?" she snapped.

"Up there," he pointed, "that's… a giant Nevermore right?"

"Yeah I think we were running."

"Hey over there!"

Brandon looked over, "oh, uh you!"

"Don't tell me you've already forgotten my name," the blonde pouted.

"I don't think you ever told me your name," he said, deadpan.

"Oh, I'm Yang Xiao Long," the rest of her team padded up.

"Eight of you… guess we're a team of twelve now."

"Guess so…?"

"Oh I'm Brandon, Brandon Hunter."

"My name's Rex," the boy in blue grinned, "Rex Azurda."

"Pyra Pneuma," the soft spoken redhead said.

"Nia," the Faunus said curtly.

Yang grinned, "nice to meet you, this adorable little girl," she grabbed the smaller girl with red highlights in a headlock, "is my younger sister Ruby Rose."

"Yang!" the girl whined, "stop it, you're embarrassing me!"

Brandon grinned.

"Weiss Schnee."

Brandon gave her a glance. She normally wouldn't have been an issue, other than the other night, but now that he was sure of who she was, her sister might be an issue.

"Jaune Arc."

"Nora Valkyrie! And this here is Lie Ren!"

"Pyrrha Nikkos."

"Blake Belladonna."

Brandon noticed Nia give Blake a look, one that Blake reciprocated. What was with that bow twitching… ah, another faunus trying to cover up who they are. Racism, he despised it and what it made people do.

"It's nice to meet you all too," Brandon gave a small salute, "I'm assuming that from the direction you're all coming from… you're all running from that?"

"Sounds about right."

"You don't want to go that way though, there's a Dealthstalker up ahead in that direction."

"Okay then, go to the side?"

"I say we fight," the blonde knight said.

"Uh… Jaune was it? I don't think-"

"Look, part of initiation is to prove ourselves right?"

"Part of proving ourselves is also knowing what fights to pick."

"I know, but I think we can take them."

"And how do you propose we do that? None of us have fought together for long and those Grimm weren't supposed to appear." He was going to have to talk to Ozpin later. Between Beacon's defenses and the lack of negativity, elder Grimm shouldn't have been able to show up

"Well looking at our team compositions, we can split up into two groups. One takes the Deathstalker with a ranged fighter and our melee fighters can distract it while we just have ranged fighters take out the Nevermore up there."

"That's… not a terrible idea."

"It isn't? Of course it isn't!"

"Uh, right, all melee fighters, follow Jaune here."

"Uh, w-w-what?"

"It was your idea no? Take some credit and lead."

"R-right."

"I'm assuming that most melee fighters have some kind of ranged attack?"

He was answered by nods from everyone.

"Alright, whoever's actually got a long range attack come with me."

Only the small girl, Ruby, stepped forward.

"Really? That's it?"

Weiss sighed and stepped forward.

"Oh this is going to go great," he muttered sarcastically, "whatever, let's go and take out these Grimm." Brandon unslung his rifle, adjusting it to high power and long range.

"OOH!"

"You've made a big mistake," Yang laughed as she walked off after Jaune, "good luck with Ruby!"

"What?"

"Can I see your weapon?!"

"What this thing? Well, it's a modular R-23. It's a modified version of the standard issue Spectre rifle. It uses electromagnets to accelerate the titanium rounds that it generates through the antimatter driver inside."

"Huh? What do you mean titanium? I thought that was a rarer type of metal? And not dust?"

"Can you leave the lesson for later? We still have that thing to deal with."

"Right," Brandon flipped up the sight and took aim, "I doubt that a single shot's going to kill it and it's definitely going to start flying unpredictably once it realizes that we have the ability to hit it from a kilometer away."

He took aim and fired, scoring a direct hit into the creature's eye. He was rewarded with a screech of pain.

As predicted, the massive bird like creature started flying around erratically but still approached the trio.

"I'm on it!" Ruby exclaimed, firing off shots from her rifle.

The dust powered projectiles pinged off the thick carapace of the Grimm. Weiss threw in her own ice attacks but also achieved relatively little. Brandon growled in annoyance as he changed his rifle's mode and started firing into the sky. The accelerated gauss rounds that connected tore through the Grimm's wings and body but few actually did.

"It's getting closer," Ruby said apprehensively.

"Fuck," he shouldered his rifle.

"Do you have anything else?"

He bit his bottom lip nervously, "I'm not sure. You're going to have to buy me some time."

"On it!" Ruby exclaimed, jumping up and using her rifle's recoil to fling herself into the air.

"Wait…" he extended a hand only to have several rose petals dance around it, "damn it, freaking hot headed idiots," he grumbled to himself as he sat down and pulled off his backpack.

"What could you possibly be hoping to do?" Weiss asked.

"Do you want the lecture?" he asked as he got to work.

"Why not."

"My bag uses a strong power source, pretty much infinite. Using the powersource is hooked up to a gravity generator that warps space, right in my backpack to give it much more room," he explained as he reached in and pulled out several parts and a skeletal frame of a weapon, "I basically have an armory in my backpack. I'm trying to put together some kind of anti air weapon right now."

"You have an infinite power source in your backpack?!"

"Yeah, and before you say anything, there's only one, and I didn't make it, the technology's been lost." Technically true, though it wasn't out of the question that he could find the blueprints if he dug deep enough into the files on the station. The core crystal, otherwise known as project immortality, one of humanity's greatest technological advancements, and yet one of the most arrogant. To think that humans tried to create something to live forever. That was all in the past now, and hey, at least they were ridiculous power sources.

"Let me rephrase, you have an infinite power source, and you used it on a backpack?"

"Yeah. What's the problem?"

"You- you- you-"

"What, you think I'm going to just give out a piece of tech like this? I'm not that generous. Even all of Atlas combined wouldn't be able to pay enough to have this."

He grunted as he stood up with a newly assembled plasma cannon. "Ruby! Get out of there!"

"Right," the distant voice responded along with the echo of a gunshot.

Brandon shouldered the weapon and fired. The bolt of plasma connected and exploded into a massive purple flare, incinerating the Grimm and superheating the area around it.

"You-" Weiss sighed, "if you could do that the entire time why did you make such a big deal out of it?"

"You know Atlesian capabilities correct?"

A nod.

"Then you know that nothing I have is standard Atlas tech. Most of it was developed by me or others I knew. I know your sister, Winter."

"You know Winter?!"

"Yeah, we've spoken a few times, but not for very long. But I know once she hears that I've talked to you no doubt she'll tell you some things about me. Mostly that I'm here on special recommendation from Ozpin, for reasons I won't share with you. But no doubt you'll learn about my tech sooner or later," he sighed with resignation as he slid the cannon into his bag before shouldering it.

"What? How? If you have technology like that why haven't you done anything with it?"

"I'd ask the same of you."

Weiss recoiled.

"Holy crap that was amazing!" Ruby squealed as she ran up to the two.

Brandon chuckled and rubbed his head sheepishly, "sorry, that was a one off thing, I didn't want to waste it but…"

"How could that have been a one off?! That was incredible!"

"Yeah sorry, I got it from someone who's… not with us anymore."

"... Oh… I'm so sorry."

"Nah, you're good, they left me a ton of other cool things to mess around with. After all, they didn't want me to mourn their death." He gazed away, a melancholy look on his face.

"Uh, are you sure?"

"Heh, positive," he ruffled her hair, almost on instinct.

"Hey there, you'd better not be making moves on my sister!"

Brandon grinned, "too young for my taste. Would the older sister like a chance?"

"No way in hell," Yang shot back.

"Ouch," he mock recoiled in pain, "such hurtful words."

She laughed, "I think you and I are going to get along just fine!"

"You took care of the Deathstalker quick."

"Yeah," Rex stood proudly, "we actually did work together well, unlike what this pessimist here was predicting."

No response from the Faunus.

"Well I guess things were kind of anticlimactic on both sides, huh?"

"Are you kidding me? What about that massive explosion!"

"Yeah yeah, you can tell your sister all about it on the way back."

* * *

"And last but not least," Ozpin and Brandon shared a look, "Nia, Brandon, Rex, and Pyra. The four of you found the Aegis pieces. You will form team Robin Egg, or Robin (RPBN), with Nia as leader."

Brandon glared at Ozpin, he had to have done that on purpose, not giving him leadership.

"Congratulations," he gave a soft applause along with the audience of new Beacon students clapping politely.

….

**Bet you were expecting Brandon to be leader right? **

**"We don't even know who that character is."**

**Oh… well then. Uh...**

**Anyways... yay! Brandon and Nia (for those of you from Fixing the Past). Yes I wrote her as being kind of antagonistic but Brandon did kind of drop out of the sky and interfere with her fight. Yes he ultimately did help her but at the same time what she was more focused on was keeping him alive and healed which was a nuisance to her in combat. Besides, she was very antagonistic in the game anyways and she only warmed up to Rex after both the 'heart to heart' and Torna trying to kill him and her morals kicked in. There was no real heart to heart opportunity during or right after initiation and no morals for her to worry about. Just an annoying person who she became partners with by random chance. **

**Also damn it's weird writing the two anew like that. I'm so used to writing the pair as a couple it feels so weird writing them throwing jabs that are actually meant to sting and not just friendly teasing. Please review, idk if the way I'm writing them right now feels right.**


	3. First Day, Let's Try This Again

Chapter 3: First Day, Let's Try This Again

**Thank you to Unknown Hunter for the kind words.**

**Hopefully I can revisit this story later to fix some things. I swear whenever I go back and reread any of my stories I cringe slightly. More so for Fixing the Past than this because the writing skill level between the prologue and the most recent chapter is kind of ridiculous.**

…**.**

"What are the chances that our rooms are all right next to each other?" Yang said, giving Brandon a look, "I'm assuming you mr. honor student had something to do with that?"

"I may have pulled a few strings," he chuckled. Although, in reality Ozpin had told him that he had gone and already arranged it before he could even ask.

"Well then, see you guys tomorrow."

Brandon nodded and turned back to his team.

"Here," Brandon tossed his three teammates keycards.

"Thanks," Rex responded, "wait, aren't these supposed to be built into our scrolls?"

"Special room," Brandon replied.

"Also, isn't Nia team leader? Shouldn't she-"

"Apparently a leader is just a figurehead around here," said faunus growled as she used the card to get through the door and slammed it behind her.

Brandon winced, "actually I have these cards because I'm an honor student and I got this room as a privilege."

"Why? Is it special in some way?"

"Why don't you go see for yourself?"

Rex shrugged then went in himself, followed by Pyra.

"Whoa! You got us a suite?"

"Yeah," Brandon chuckled, stepping in behind the young boy.

"You didn't have to, I would have just shared the bed with Pyra anyway… I mean."

Brandon laughed, "go be with your girlfriend."

Like everything else he had told his team, it was a half truth. He had gotten them a suite, because he had built it himself. Ozpin had given him two rooms after he had requested it and he spent a week building it. Of course he had to get people to help, otherwise the room would be mostly an ugly mismatch of any kind of metal he could get his hands on.

Though he regretted only making it two rooms. He had been expecting someone not so… antagonistic as a partner. Also preferably male, but he honestly would have taken _anyone_ but that specific faunus. Just his damn luck. He couldn't catch a break, huh.

He let out a deep sigh and walked into his room.

Nia didn't even look up from unpacking. Brandon rolled his eyes before sitting down at his desk while slinging his backpack off and pulling his laptop out. He might as well get some work done before classes tomorrow.

* * *

He leaned back and gripped his hair in frustration. It was so difficult trying to get anything done without the powerful equipment of the university. Even with his tech that he had, nothing could match the sheer power of the coliders and detectors. Even that damn core crystal couldn't provide the computing power that he wanted, no, needed to continue his studies in physics and figuring out new tech.

Of course refusing the offers from Ironwood had put him in this position, but he had his reasons. He would rather suffer the frustration now than let a war break out, especially when the peace between nations was precarious at best. With Salem as an opponent… this would be difficult. She couldn't be killed, but that should be impossible, even with the conduit's power. There should always be a way, whether deleting her with antimatter or using gravity to put her in a singularity. But accounts from Ozpin indicate that none of that would keep her down for long. She would survive and adapt so it could never damage her again. He glanced down to his smartwatch.

Oh shit, not again. He glanced to the other side of the room to see Nia snoring away.

Five A.M.

He did it again. Another late night studying. He glanced over at Nia again. How she had managed to fall asleep with the lights on and the constant tapping of his keyboard he had no idea. He sighed, no point in going to sleep only to get up again in an hour. He should stretch and go jogging or something.

Nah, video games sound much more fun.

Aaand it was already six. Video games made time fly by way too quickly.

Nia was still snoring away.

Eh, she could get up herself, he shrugged.

He should actually go jogging now. Physical conditioning may not have been the most important given his skeletal exosuit but it didn't hurt to be healthy. Shower after, then make breakfast. Sounded like a plan.

* * *

"Morning!" Rex yawned as he stumbled out of his room.

"Morning," Brandon called back over the whistling of the rice cooker.

"What's that?"

"It's a rice cooker," Brandon said.

"I know it's a rice cooker, but why are you making rice in the morning?"

"I'm Asia- uh, family thing."

"Ah."

"Why do I smell rice?" Pyra asked as she rubbed her eyes from the doorframe.

"This weirdo's family has rice for breakfast apparently."

"Hey! I'll have you know it's not weird where I come from. Rice and a good soup with sides is a perfectly good breakfast!"

"Well," Pyra said, "I personally don't eat like that but I do know that it is common in some areas."

"See!? Listen to your girlfriend."

"However, I too find it a bit strange."

"Do you want breakfast or not?"

"Shutting up."

"That's right."

He turned his head as he heard the door click and open.

"Hey, want some breakfast?"

He was pointedly ignored as Nia grabbed a set of clothes that she had left out earlier and went into the bathroom.

"I guess not. Well then, anyone want an omelet?"

* * *

Brandon sighed. Why huntsmen in training had to take history classes or Grimm studies was beyond him.

Oh well, now he was in combat class. Time to see what the other students were made of. Goodwitch caught his eye.

"Mr. Hunter. How about our honor student show us the ropes with Miss Nikkos?"

He raised an eyebrow. Guess he was going first.

"Watch carefully," Goodwitch said to the class, "these two are both talented fighters. There is much to be learned from them."

Nia leaned forward, interested in what the champion fighter and the supposed best student could bring to the table.

Pyrrha Nikkos, one of the most talented fighters and a massive star, versus Brandon Hunter, someone she had never heard of before until just yesterday. She rubbed her chest in discomfort. Something about him didn't feel right but she couldn't put her finger on it.

She did feel like she was a little too cold to him but she had four years to fix it. They didn't have to become best friends or anything like that.

She watched the two take fighting stances and simply started circling each other when Miss Goodwitch called begin. So he was experienced after all. They were looking for openings, brief glimpses at the other's weakness. She noticed a small change in Brandon's stance and Pyrrha immediately charged forward.

Brandon used that to his advantage. Interesting, looks like that little falter was intentional. Judging by how they exchanged blows, Brandon was a much more methodological fighter, analyzing every aspect of his opponent while staying aggressive, but every move was planned far in advance. It looks like he had a plan and took steps to make sure that everything fit into it. Pyrrha, on the other hand, looked like a much more reactionary fighter, fighting in small step increments, taking in each situation then attacking or defending depending on what it called for.

Brandon couldn't match up to Pyrrha's strength or speed but it was apparent that he made up for it in brains, almost as if he had spent more time analyzing and studying fighting techniques rather than training.

But ultimately, Brandon was the better fighter and he delivered the final blow, knocking Pyrrha off her feet and lowering her Aura enough for Goodwitch to call the fight.

"Impressive," she said as he climbed back up to his seat.

He gave her a surprised look, "you can say something that's not negative?"

She rolled her eyes, "I'm trying to be a decent person. I've never seen your fighting style before. You even managed to beat the champion fighter with it."

His fighting style was interesting, one that spoke of a history in military training, but none that she had encountered during her time with the White Fang, or even before that.

"She may be a champion fighter but I trained for combat by practicing with humans. Really skilled humans at that. My instructor was a battle hardened marine."

Marine. Another indicator that something wasn't quite right with him. No one used the term marine. It was obvious that he was referring to a soldier of some kind but no current standing army referred to their troops as marines.

Only ancient texts had ever referred to them as marines. Texts found that were over three thousand years old. He claimed that where he was from, rice was commonly eaten for breakfast and despite what Pyra had said, it wasn't common at all. In fact, few people actually ate rice. It was nice being a cat faunus or she wouldn't have been able to hear the conversation.

Even his clothing style was odd. Jeans, a black t-shirt with some character on it, and a green vest. What was weirder than the style was the character. He seemed to have more than one as he was wearing one with a different character today, but none of them were ones she recognized. She normally wouldn't have given it a second thought but because of how much of a mystery he was, she discreetly took photos and did some searching only to find nothing.

He really wasn't from Atlas or Mantle. Her current theory is that he's from a secretive area, one that knows about what happened to the world three thousand years ago and why their ancestors suddenly disappeared, and knows the secrets to the old technology. So far, the only old technology that has been found was the technology for global communications, the four CCTs at each of the huntsman academies.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, he would even make me fight him bare handed while he had a full exosuit on," he chuckled, "It was brutal."

Exosuit. Never heard that term either but it wasn't hard to deduce the meaning. She was sure he was talking about one of the files he had open on his computer.

For someone who she was ninety nine percent sure was in the military, he sure wasn't very careful. It had been risky but he hadn't noticed that she had been awake and watching him work. Not that she had meant to be creepy but she had lived her entire life being paranoid and even if Beacon was safe, she wasn't going to take any risks. Of course she had fallen asleep at some point. She hadn't realized that he was going to pull an all nighter.

"Sounds real tough."

The smile on his face dropped.

"That wasn't sarcasm," she said a little too quickly.

"Sure," he turned back to the stage.

"Next, can we have Miss Xiao Long and Miss Starlet come up to the stage?"

Brandon looked slightly amused as Nia stood up. Nia Starlet huh? Sounded familiar but it was probably just hi- okay. The other faunus… Blake, definitely had a reaction to the name. So the eye contact during initiation did mean something.

Nia drew out just one of her rings and crouched into a defensive position. Yang sprang her gauntlets up into full form and smirked at the faunus.

"Begin!"

Yang sprang forward first, fist cocked back. Nia easily stepped to the side and slammed her ring into Yang's side, taking advantage of the headfirst approach almost like a matador against a bull.

Yang shouted a battlecry and charged in again. Nia sighed, almost out of boredom and slipped out of the way and slammed a kick into her back.

Yang growled and her hair burst into flames, her eyes flashing red as she moved in to attack for a third time. This time, Nia chose not to dodge, instead choosing to directly engage. Yang seemed much more confident in that, using her momentum and speed to maneuver around and land blows. Unfortunately for Yang, Nia seemed to be just that much more experienced, easily blocking and moving around Yang's steady attacks and dismantling her entire style ruthlessly.

She fought a lot like Pyrrha did, Brandon noted. Someone who was experienced in combat against other people and fought with a very reactionary style, unlike Yang's continuous pressure and aggression, trying to knock Nia off balance while Nia simply defended everything and counterattacked when Yang's attacks failed and she was thrown off balance. But beyond the counters, she completely outclassed the blonde brawler. Yang couldn't take advantage of her burst speed with her shotgun gauntlets as Nia was simply more nimble and had incredible instincts and reaction time. That meant that Yang's momentum based combat style could never really snowball out of control.

Eventually Yang tired and slipped up. Nia capitalized on it and slammed a knee into Yang's stomach and drew a knife from her belt, bringing it down to Yang's neck in one fluid motion. She stopped it just short, Yang's aura level having already dropped to below a loss.

"Nia Starlet is the victor."

Nia rolled her shoulders and smirked.

"Easy."

"Miss Starlet, please refrain from taunting your opponents. While I applaud you for seeing through your opponent's tactics and taking advantage of her enraged state, your performance was less than stellar. You were obviously taking advantage of how easily you analyzed Yang's fighting style. IF… you were even slightly slower, in either speed or reaction time, Miss Xiao-Long's momentum would have carried through."

"Sorry," she muttered.

Goodwitch turned to Yang, "and you, Miss Xiao-Long, you need to work on..."

"What martial art was that?" Brandon narrowed his eyes as Nia walked back to her seat, "I don't recognize it."

"It's… it's not a martial art."

"It definitely is. Despite the way you fought, there was some calculation. Measured reactions to certain triggers. It was a weird style but-"

"I said it's not-!" She sighed, almost reprimanding herself, "... or rather, it isn't anymore."

"Anymore?"

"Not after the White Fang adopted it as it's official hand to hand style."

"You were a Fang member?"

She flinched, "yeah, go and hate me or whatever."

"I don't hate you."

"W-what?"

"I don't. I have a lot of respect for someone who has the courage to challenge an overwhelming government," he tilted his head, "there is no motivator like fear. Peaceful protests and nice words don't work against deaf ears. Especially when the general population doesn't agree with you. Terrorizing civilians is wrong, but striking at the government? That takes courage."

"You… what?"

"Bet you weren't expecting that huh? I respect you for having the balls to fight society, and I respect you for having the courage to back out of the violence. Or… well, I'm assuming by the fact that you're here you're out of the Fang?"

She gulped and nodded.

"Not everyone will act as I do, but I doubt many here are actually racist. Kind of hard to be when you want to protect humanity."

"I- I-"

Brandon smiled, "let's start over. Hi," he held out a hand in greeting, "I'm Brandon Hunter. Let's be friends."

"I'm Nia Starlet," she said as she took his hand, "likewise. Well… this feels weird."

"Why's that?"

"I haven't had a real friend… in a long time."

"I mean, how long can long be?" he said with an almost teasing grin, "you're only seventeen right?"

"Yeah yeah. A couple of years I guess."

"Blake Belladonna?"

Nia flinched.

"I would say I'm pretty dense, but I notice the subtle stuff like that. I'm also assuming if you had some kind of relationship, it was within the White Fang correct?"

"Yeah… I don't really want to talk about it."

"Uh, right… sorry."

"You're fine… It's just, I don't like thinking about the past too much."

"Tell me about it."

"Mr. Hunter!" Goodwitch snapped, "I don't care how highly rated you are by Ozpin. If you cannot pay attention in class I am going to have to ask you to leave!"

"Sorry ma'am," he gulped.

"See that it doesn't happen again."

* * *

"I hate lectures," Brandon groaned, slumping onto his chair and covering his eyes, "there are so many better ways to learn and teach but they choose lectures."

"Better ways?"

"I guess you wouldn't know. I was originally a regular student at the University of Vale. I was studying physics and engineering before getting drafted."

"You were a student at the University of Vale?! But I thought it was the most prestigious university in all of Remnant, the hardest one to get into!"

"Yeah, I thought I had no chance when I applied," he sighed, another half truth. Well this wasn't even half, it was almost a full out lie, "but it turns out that giving examples of my tech was enough to get me in."

If she ever bothered to call up the University to verify, everyone involved would confirm.

"H-how smart are you?"

"Well, my tech has been sought out by the Atlas military."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Don't worry, I didn't give it to them. I dislike large militaristic governments as much as I respect you and the White Fang."

"Huh, and you weren't a freedom fighter yourself at some point?"

"No," he said through gritted teeth.

"That doesn't sound like a confident no."

"I… maybe I was at some point."

"Didn't you say you were eighteen at some point? How were you able to fit so much into your life?"

"I have my ways."

"I'm assuming those ways were getting no sleep."

"Maybe."

"You must be some kind of machine."

"Well, when you're as busy as I am, sleep is considered a luxury I couldn't have." College meaning no sleep of course, "I'm used to getting about five to six hours of sleep a week."

He yawned, "I think I might just hit the hay early today. Pulling an all nighter then taking out a superior fighter has taken its toll."

"You picked Pyrrha apart though."

"Hah, give her another year and she'll be beating me without all of my gear..

"What?"

"Yeah. In case you didn't notice, within that five minute spar, my tactics became less and less effective."

"I didn't notice."

He grinned, "surprising, given that you were watching us so intently."

She flushed, "you noticed?"

"Heh. You were pretty obvious. Plus it's something that should be kind of intuitive… no? I was watching you during your fight, nodding and shaking my head at certain points."

"You were? Um… do you think you could spar with me?"

"Now? I was planning on sleeping…"

"It's three. There is no way you were planning on sleeping for fifteen hours."

"Urk, fine. I'll show you that I'm not actually that good at fighting."

She snorted, "not that good, he says as he beats up the champion fighter."

* * *

"Wow, you really aren't that good," she said as she sent Brandon sprawling to the ground for the third time.

"I told you," he winced as Nia helped him to his feet, "that's the thing about most students here. They're like lesser versions of you and Pyrrha. A reactive style. You think out how moves flow together and how to make them most effective but ultimately not too much of a real strategy. My style is very different. When I'm preparing for one on one combat I study my opponent. Everyone's seen Pyrrha's tournaments before so I was able to prepare at least mentally. I also use a style that's more effective in hit and run, guerrilla style combat. We were at this for three hours. I was able to take you by surprise at the beginning but you adapted to it and learned how to counter it."

"Yeah but you're still strategically better than I am."

"And you're more skilled than I am."

"What happened to being trained by a marine?"

"Again, hit and run."

Hit and run. Seemed like the opposite of what a military would do. He obviously was never in the Vale Defense Corps as he claimed to have been. His story adds up. He didn't. Was there a splinter group within Vale? A rebellion that the government has been keeping under wraps?

Everything pointed to him being a freedom fighter.

"Right. I'm assuming that's why Ozpin didn't just get you a huntsman license." She wanted to see if she could pry a little more information out. There has to be more to it than just being a special student.

"Eh," he shrugged, "I don't know about that, I still have to go through the whole system."

Well it was worth the shot.

"I'm a recommended student so I'm just here based on his recommendation and vouching because I have nothing else to actually get me in. His reputation hangs on me, which is why he gave us the great room and slightly better stuff. It may be slight favoritism but when his job is on the line…"

"Yeah. I guess," she sighed and sat down heavily and panted, exhaustion from the three hours of training kicking in.

"What? You done already?"

"Whatever happened to being tired?"

He shrugged and smiled, "military training. This isn't even that bad." He extended a hand.

Nia took it and Brandon yanked her up to her feet. He turned away to head back to the dorm only to feel his arm yank him back.

"Are you already going to sleep old man?"

"Yes?"

"Nope, you're coming with me to the dining hall."

Brandon grinned, "is this your way of asking me out?"

She rolled her eyes, "no. If anything it's Yang's way of asking you out."

"Yang?"

She rolled her eyes again, "I'm not antagonistic to everyone. You just got on my nerves before learning more about you. Also Yang will beat her friendship into other people."

"Sounds about right."

"And as soon as you become friends she beats her sister over your head."

"When did you even have the chance to interact with her?" He asked.

"Lunch. While you dragged Rex and Pyra back to eat with you."

"I'll have you know they came willingly," he protested.

"Whatever. You're taking my place so I don't have to suffer through Yang's constant puns."

"Oh no no no no-"

"Too late!" She cackled.

"Help!" Brandon called out, "she's taking me to pun hell!"

"You're not getting out of this."

"Noooo…"

* * *

"You have no sense of humor," Yang stuck her tongue out at Brandon.

"My sense of humor is perfectly fine," he rolled his eyes, "it's just that it doesn't only consist of puns and dad jokes."

"Boo."

Brandon laughed, "who's supposed to be the older sister?"

"I am, most of the time."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Hey!"

"Heh, bet you're a sore loser as well."

"I don't lose."

"What about that spar with Nia?"

Yang made a face, "that doesn't count."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah."

"Want to bet?"

"Oh hell yeah, what are the stakes?"

"Uh, didn't really think about that…" he rummaged around in his bag for a second, "here, how about this?"

"A… cube of metal?"

"Not just any cube of metal, a promise of an upgrade."

"To Ember Celica?"

"Yeah, top level tech, Atlas level tech."

"Oh yeah, bring it on," she grinned, slamming a fist into her palm.

"You two are real battle maniacs huh?" Rex joked. He had joined the group of friends slightly after Brandon and Nia had.

"Huh?" Brandon raised an eyebrow as he pulled out a gaming console.

"Oh, you were going to compete in video games?"

"What, I don't know about Yang here but I'm not one to go and beat up others to settle a bet," he said as he tossed Yang a controller.

"Beat up? I'm the one who's going to do the beating up."

"Oh yeah? Bring it on!"

"I'm going to beat you into the ground!"

* * *

"How…"

"Oh yeah! Winning Yang style!"

"Whatever, I don't even play that game a lot," Brandon grumbled.

"That's an Atlas level upgrade you owe me now."

"Ugh fine, I'll get to work. You have the schematics? Or can I just get your weapons, I can get them back to you by tomorrow morning."

"Wait, you were serious? I thought you were joking."

"Unfortunately not."

"Wait, but I didn't even throw out anything if I lost."

Brandon shrugged, "eh, it's fine, I can get you the upgrade."

"Like what?"

"Making them structurally stronger and have more firepower, along with a few extra things I have in mind."

"Like what?"

"I don't have everything mapped out. Probably some kind of shield, some energy enhancements, unlimited ammo…"

"You can do all of that?"

"Yeah, it's not too much of an issue."

"Not too much of an issue?! That sounds like insane tech! Are you sure you can just give that out?"

"I mean, I wouldn't have offered it if I couldn't."

"But, couldn't you-"

"Look, I normally ask for payment. This stuff isn't cheap. Before this, I was planning on graduating from the University of Vale, I was studying engineering so I could work on Huntsman weapons. There are a few that got an upgrade or two during my internship."

"Wait what was your last name again?"

"Hunter," he smirked.

Yang's mouth fell open, "you're that Hunter guy? I heard a buzz going around recently about your weapons."

"Better late than never I suppose. I guess Huntsmen don't really read through instruction manuals huh? Took them long enough to realize how good my stuff is. Kind of late though."

"Ugh, you're going to make me read an instruction manual?"

Brandon crossed his arms, "do you want the upgrade or not?"

"Alright," she slipped off her gauntlets and tossed them to Brandon, "one scratch on them and you're dead."

"Got it," he laughed, "no scratches."

"You two are insane," Nia rolled her eyes.

"That's why we're best friends now," Yang laughed, "that and he's going to install some snazzy upgrades."

"I'll go and get to work," he sighed, standing up and taking his tray with him.

"You suddenly seem super willing to give out your tech all of a sudden," Nia said as she jogged to catch up.

Brandon shrugged, "it was a bet I made on impulse. I do stick to my word," wincing even as he forced that out. He wasn't lying to them perse… he just wasn't telling them everything yet. Better to earn their trust now.

Damn it. It was his fault Ozpin had any interest in them to begin with. If Oz was going to force them into the fight against Salem, he was going to make sure they go in prepared, he would just have to figure out how to work around the cover story Ozpin had crafted.

It was probably the will of the fates, he could have had anyone as his team but he seems to have gotten some of the most talented and unique fighters in the school.

"You don't seem like the type of person to do that."

"And how long have you really known me for?" He shrugged, "I could do a couple of things for you as well if you want."

"Really?"

"Of course, you're my partner now after all."

Nia smiled, "yeah, I guess we are, partner."

…**.**

**Hmmmm. I don't think I wrote Brandon well. I wanted him to kind of… well not be mean to everyone else but trying not to befriend them but at the same time, just by chance they are now associated with him so he has to protect them. IDK. I'm so bad at writing ugh. This was probably worse than usual because I wrote a good chunk of it after finishing an 8 page essay, working on 2 projects, and studying for finals. It's also in third person but it swaps between Nia and Brandon which I probably have to fix.**

**I also wrote their fighting almost how I would describe Starcraft players and their playstyles. Like how I pictured Brandon being part of the military (well an informal military) so he would take a very strategic and measured response to combat, having a plan before the battle and tailored around his opponent, forcing them into situations that follow his plan while adapting it slightly through the fight. Personally I like to play like Yang, using a strong aggressive momentum based playstyle. I use a strong build order and timing to deal early damage and catch my opponent off guard, forcing them to change their build order to try to fight mine. That damage usually snowballs to the point where I stay in my opponent's face with either a parade push or harassment to their mineral lines allowing me to build up a maxed out late game army and crush them. **

**Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait to the five of you that actually read this.**


	4. Catching Up, With the Past

Chapter 4: Catching up, With the Past

**Again, TY UnknownHunter. I really do appreciate it.**

**Also wtf was the latest episode of RWBY? It was such bullshit, team RWBY shouldn't have stood a chance versus the Ace ops. The top level huntsmen vs a team of students who they've only been training for a couple of months at max. The ace ops should have dominated easily even if team RWBY got in a few good hits.**

**The thing with Clover was eh. It was fine, but if they make it a fakeout, I'm going to be so pissed off. Qrow shouldn't have been stupid enough to actually go along with whatever the hell Tyrian was doing. **

**Also Robyn should have been smart enough to realize she can't fight an Ace op. It doesn't matter that she was a good huntress, Clover is the best of the best.**

**It almost makes me feel better about my writing. LUL**

….

"Wake up, wake up… WAKE UP!" Nia yelled into Brandon's ear as she shook him violently, "we're going to be late again if you don't get up now!"

"Wha huh?" Brandon mumbled groggily.

"Oh shit," he rolled out of bed and raced over to his dresser, "why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"You should know my schedule now."

"Right," he mumbled. He slipped into a pair of pants, briefly wondered if his shirt smelled bad, then decided that it didn't matter. The two left their room.

"Here," Rex called, tossing an apple at Brandon who barely caught it.

"Thanks."

"I've also packed us all something to eat later," Pyra said.

"Huh?"

Nia sighed, "field trip day, remember?"

"Right…" the others just stared at him, "look, in my defense, I was up late figuring out upgrades for your gear. Especially given how unique you," he pointed at Rex, "and Pyra are in how you fight together. I have never seen a pair share a weapon and support the other the way you two do."

They all slowly made their way out to class.

Rex chuckled, "probably why I was admitted early. On my own, I wouldn't have been even able to apply."

"Don't say that," Pyra admonished.

"But it's true, I'm too young to apply, remember? Only reason why I'm here is because we need each other. Ruby is only here because of her actions earlier with a criminal band."

"Right," he remembered Ruby telling them her story several weeks back.

"If Pyra's fighting style didn't rely on me fighting with her… I wouldn't be here."

He heard Pyra let out a loud sigh, "stop saying that, you know the real reason why you're hear."

Brandon smiled, "you two must have known each other for a long time huh."

"Yeah, since we were babies really."

"No wonder."

"I mean, you sure you and Nia didn't know each other before?" Rex asked, "you two have gotten pretty close and the way you fight together during spars is incredible."

"No, I wouldn't have been friends with an idiot like this in any other situation."

"Hey!"

Rex and Pyra laughed.

Brandon sighed as he bit into the fruit he was holding. "Glad that Nia calling me an idiot fifty times a day is still so amusing to you two."

"It's more your reaction to being called an idiot."

"Gee thanks."

Nia grinned and elbowed him.

Brandon laughed, "I swear, I can't tell when you're serious or not."

"Well I am from the Gormott region after all. Sass is in my genes."

"A lot of sass apparently, mixed with sarcasm and anger management issues."

Nia made a face, "for someone who complains that I'm mean, you sure don't pull your punches in your comebacks."

"You gave me no other choice, milady," he laughed, "it's your fault for putting me in a mock or be mocked situation for almost a month."

"What? You complaining that I conditioned you to have better comebacks?"

Brandon sighed, "would have been nicer if you hadn't done a trial by fire."

Nia shrugged, "it's more effective that way."

"Whatever, as long as you're serious while we're in Forever Fall."

"You both better be serious," Rex said, "the forest is infested with Grimm and if you're caught off guard bantering, then we're not going to have a good time."

"You're? Are you assuming it's only going to be me and Nia that banter? You and Pyra tease each other all the time!"

"Yeah, but we do it out of love. You two do it out of… mutual annoyance?"

Nia laughed, "close enough!"

"That's as good an explanation as any," Brandon shrugged then turned toward Nia, "you got all the gear I gave you?"

"Yeah. I'm not dumb enough to forget all the gadgets you made me."

"Right, and you've actually tried them out, right?"

"What, do you think I'm an idiot?"

"You always call me an idiot," Brandon shrugged, "figured you would have forgotten something while you hissed your rage at me."

"Ugh, bloody idiot," she huffed and angled her head away.

"Hey! You don't have to call me an idiot every ten seconds!" he said in annoyance as he tried to move into her vision range.

"Hmph."

"Don't hmph at me missy. I have half a mind to…"

* * *

Brandon grunted as he drove the spile the class had been given into a tree. Apparently because the trip was led by Goodwitch, the trip was divided up to be spread out through the next week for all the first years depending on which hour you had combat class. He grabbed the jar and held it under the tap to fill it up.

He groaned as the tree ran out after only filling up the jar partially.

"Hey, you guys need help?" He asked, noticing that his team was struggling with the spiles.

"I'm fine!" Nia growled, frustration and anger eventually giving her the strength to power the spile into the tree.

"Right, you two good?"

"Uh…" Rex flushed, "I may have just let Pyra take over." He gestured over to Pyra who was sliding Rex's sword out of a tree.

Brandon sighed. "Isn't Pyra's semblance fire."

"Eep!" Pyra put a hand over her mouth as the trunk caught on fire.

"Pyra, you need to be in certain conditions to not set the tree on fire," he leaned over to Rex, "and it's not control over fire right?" He asked.

"Uhhh… no…"

"Damn it, use your semblance to surround it with metal. You've got to choke out it's oxygen flow."

Rex's semblance was the ability to create and control metal. He couldn't understand it for the life of him, but apparently what happens is that all the molecules he needed are drawn up and cause a contained fusion reaction that converts it into metal and he has full control over any metal he creates. Apparently it takes Aura though so he would have to sacrifice defensive capability if he wants to use it in battle. The higher up on the periodic table, the more Aura it took.

The weapon he and Pyra shares was forged over several years, both he and Pyra contributing to it over the entire forging process, him providing the rare metals and Pyra providing heat to fuse the metals together properly.

The two proved to be an excellent team, already having proved themselves by defeating Torna, a terrorist group second only to the White Fang. But while the White Fang fought for justice, no one knew what Torna fought for. The only information that people had was that the nine leaders of Torna were individually capable of going toe to toe with even the most accomplished of Huntsmen. Only the teamwork and strategy planned out by Rex and Pyra let them separate Jin, the leader of Torna, from the rest of the group and got him into custody after he was surrounded by dozens of huntsmen and had no choice but to surrender.

He was never given an explanation as to why the two involved themselves with Torna. He only knew that the two were targets of Torna for some reason.

"Done," Rex said, snapping Brandon back into attention.

"Oh, good."

"Dude, you need to get some sleep."

"Maybe… I was just thinking about Torna."

The creaking of metal bending turned both Brandon's and Rex's head toward the source of the noise.

"Torna," Nia spat through clenched teeth, her hand curled into a fist around the spile, crumpling it like foil, "what have I said about mentioning that name in front of me."

"Sorry," Brandon apologized.

"I swear, you need to get your head out of the clouds dumbarse."

"I'm sorry that I like to think."

Nia rolled her eyes, "that kind of thinking is going to get you killed. And not just by Grimm if you catch my drift."

"Understood milady," he rolled his eyes back, "no need for the threats."

"It's the only way through that thick skull of yours."

"You suck."

"Right, I'm the one who-"

A scream suddenly split the air, interrupting their banter.

"What the… oh shit, someone's in trouble," Brandon sprang to his feet but faltered when no one followed him.

"Why are none of you-"

"What?" Nia paused her work to look him in the eye, "going to help?"

"Yeah?"

"Well I'm sorry to whoever is getting a beating out there but if they can't even take on the basic Grimm in this forest then they have no chance as a huntsman. They'll probably take some bad wounds but Goodwitch will probably save them. It'll wake them up. They'll either train harder or give up and go home, assuming they even get a chance in the matter."

"But-"

"There is no buts in this. If you just go and save them, they'll end up in a similar situation down the road, and there might not be someone to save them then."

"Rex…? Pyra…?"

"Sorry, we're with Nia on this one. Well, Pyra's with Nia and I can't fight without her…"

"You guys can't be serious."

"I'm sorry, that's just the way the world wo-"

"I'm not going to stand here and let someone die when I have the chance to save them!" Brandon screamed, cutting Nia off with crazed eyes.

His team backed off in shock from the sudden outburst. They had never seen their calm and collected teammate raise his voice before, much less show genuine anger.

Brandon grit his teeth before spinning to face the direction of the scream. "I'll go alone if I have to," he said as he stalked off.

"Should we… follow him?" Rex asked, "I know how capable he is but even he's bound to mess up at some point if he's not thinking straight."

"I don't know," Nia replied, "there's something messed up in his head, the way he responds to things like this. It's almost as if…"

"As if what?"

"Nothing, I'm thinking aloud," she shook her head, "come on, we've got to make sure that bloody idiot doesn't get himself killed."

* * *

"Out of the way!" Brandon yelled his fury as he slammed into a Beowolf, his fully armored body crushing the relatively small Grimm under a thousand kilograms of metal, killing it instantly without any need for his gauss rifle, the electricity he added to the gauntlet portion of his armor, or the thousand other gadgets and weapons he has stored up around his body.

"Damn it," he slammed a fist into a tree in frustration.

"Fuck!" He cursed, running to catch the tree as it fell over. He gingerly lowered the tree to the ground before sitting down heavily.

"Why can't I do anything right?" he groaned. His tracking skills, unfortunately, were nonexistent and he had quickly lost the position of the source of the sound.

"You know, I can help you if you want."

"Why now when it's too late?"

"I'm sorry," Nia said, taking a seat next to him, "I didn't realize how bad it was. But I'm curious. How is it that you have PTSD without any major wars or battles taking place recently."

Brandon stiffened, though Nia couldn't tell that anything had changed underneath the suit of armor.

"I don't have PTSD."

"Oh please, it was clear as day."

"No fooling you huh?" he sighed, "I can't really say."

"And why not?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You'd be surprised at what I would believe."

Brandon chuckled, "I'm sure. Well, let's just say family and leave it at that."

"Losing family. I've been there."

Brandon's helmet retracted, "you have?"

She nodded, "all of my family is dead. From direct to distant relatives… none are alive anymore. They all died fighting for the Faunus." She sighed, "I'm a damn coward. I ran while they died fighting."

"That's… I'm sorry."

"No need, I've accepted it a long time ago."

"Nia I… there's a lot I want to say but…"

"But you can't say it," she sighed, "everyone has their secrets and they keep them for different reasons."

"Why do you keep yours?"

She snorted, "first time someone asked me that. Mostly so I don't get locked up in some insane asylum. What about you?"

"Classified," he gave a weak smile.

"Of course it is."

"And the whole mental asylum thing," he said with a chuckle, "that's also some pretty big incentive."

Though it was a relief that Ozpin was here. He wouldn't have had much of a purpose if it weren't for him. Salem… Galea. His old colleague. It was hard to believe that she was now a murderous monster out to destroy the world for no reason other than basic desire.

"Brandon… I know I'm not the most people person. But despite how I act, I do really care. We are partners after all. But there needs to be some trust between us."

Brandon nodded, "I know. I just… I'm not allowed to say anything for now. And also, again, you wouldn't believe me. You would have to see for yourself."

"Oh for the-" she sighed, "alright then, I'll start. I'm the child of two cat Faunus."

"Big surprise there," Brandon said.

"Shut it. I'm giving you my whole sob story, the least you can do is listen."

"Sorry."

"Hmph. Anyways, I never knew my ma. She was captured and sold into slavery while she was outside of our town. I was barely three at the time."

"I thought slavery was illegal." Brandon said through gritted teeth.

"Maybe in Vale. That doesn't stop crime rings or other nations. Not to mention the smaller independent towns and villages. My da was relatively important. In the outcast Faunus village anyways, a real big cheese. He tried his best to find her but he never succeeded. He eventually started getting desperate. He led raids against towns he even heard the faintest whisper of Faunus slavery. There was also my big sister. She always had a weak body. After a while she couldn't take the stress of waiting for our da after every battle, praying to any God out there that he would come back alive," she bit her lip and paused.

"I'm guessing she got sick," Brandon said tentatively.

"Yeah. My da stopped the raids. He spent every waking hour trying to find a cure for her. He ended up using every last Lien, every last favor. That meant that the enemies he made had time to recover. And they struck back with a vengeance. When he realized that he couldn't win, he trusted my sister and I to his close friend Dromarch, a tiger Faunus. He sacrificed himself so the rest of us could flee. We became drifters. Relying on begging, not that we would get much more than kicks thrown our way. My sister died from the disease shortly after. I couldn't take it after that. I eventually forced Dromarch to teach me how to fight, how to survive. He was against it at first and he held out remarkably well. He believed that I wouldn't just use his knowledge to defend myself but to also strike back against society. But he eventually relented. But…"

"But the past has an annoying habit of catching up."

"Yeah. Well it wasn't the past exactly. We were hunted down for who we were. Just because we had an extra pair of ears on our heads. Same story though. He sacrificed himself so I could escape. I just ran. I ended up wandering around on my own for another year-"

"An entire year?"

"Yeah. At some point afterwards, I stopped valuing my own life. I decided to do exactly what Dromarch didn't want me to do. I started attacking any place with any Faunus discrimination without any regard for my own life. At some point during my attacks against Atlas, the White Fang found me. They became my new family."

"And you struck back at society."

"Yeah. Although…"

"Although?"

"I was never really able to let go of my morals. My sister drilled them into me."

"But the white fang is-"

"Yeah, that's why I left. I didn't want to kill."

"Ah."

"I did have a family there. But they slowly descended into more and more violence. I wasn't exactly in the best state of mind but I refused to give up what my sister had given me. I'm sure you've already noticed, but Blake was one of them. She's definitely here because she left as well but there are still some feelings of spite. I can't blame her though."

"Hypocrite."

Nia smiled sadly, "aren't most people though?"

"Well I… I guess."

"That's what I thought. It's your turn now."

"W-what?"

"That's how this sharing thing works yeah?"

"Uh… right. Where to start?" He took in a deep breath, "I guess… what if I told you that the Grimm have a master?"

"What? You're joking."

"Knew it," he grumbled.

"You're serious?"

"Yeah. You gave me your story, I'm giving you mine. I'm not going to go into my past. It's not something that I want to revisit. But anyways, there's a queen of the Grimm, her name is Salem."

"Salem…"

"Not a common name but yeah. She has complete control over the minds and creation of the Grimm."

"There's an intelligent force behind the Grimm. So Ozpin recruited you as a honor student because of your tech to be able to fight."

"Pretty much," he snorted, "I like how you immediately concluded that Ozpin was the one in charge."

"It was kind of obvious."

"Hm, I guess it was."

"Will you tell me where you're from?"

He grinned, "you first."

"Small town called Torigoth. It's not part of the four main countries. It was the capital of a primarily cat Faunus city-state called Gormott."

Brandon nodded and sighed, "Atlas," he conceded.

"That's it? How were you part of the Vale defense force then?"

"Left Atlas. Too much like the So… I mean too militaristic for my taste."

"But you develop weapons?"

"My parents' business was created to make huntsmen weapons. I followed in their footsteps to help build a defense for humanity. I do not make weapons of war against other humans. Only against Grimm."

"Noble. Ironwood never tried anything?"

"Oh he has, but he's yet to succeed."

"Guess I didn't give you enough credit."

Brandon grinned, "how are those new weapons of yours holding up?"

"The daggers are fine. The utility belt is pretty cool. But I don't know what you did with my rings but they glow blue now and slice through Grimm like butter."

He laughed, "that's the plasma edging. They'll cut through just about anything when they're on."

"So that's why you warned me not to touch anything blue."

"Smaller Grimm should be no problem."

"Yeah…" she paused awkwardly. "We should probably start heading back to meet up with the class. Rex and Pyra have our jars."

"Where are those two?"

"After we saw you just sitting there I told them to head back."

"Oh," he said. Nia stood up and reached out a hand. Brandon collapsed his armor and grabbed it, heaving himself up.

"We decided that Rex was too naive and Pyra was too nice."

Brandon laughed, "sounds about right. Hopefully whoever that was is alright."

It turns out that it was Cardin of all people. And he was saved by Jaune of all people. Somehow the blonde clutz beat an elder Grimm alone and saved the biggest bully in the entire academy.

Pyrrha had been singing him with nothing but praise that dinner. Cardin, on the other hand, had gone right back to his old ways but the moment he started spewing racist crap, Jaune stood up and moved to the Faunus' aid. Velvet if he remembered correctly. Cardin backed down quickly after Brandon joined Jaune in the staredown.

"You know you could have told us about this right?" Brandon said as they sat back down.

"Yeah," Jaune said sheepishly, "but hindsight is twenty twenty right? I was worried someone would turn me in."

"You know, Ozpin definitely knew your transcripts were fake. There's no way that some knock off could have fooled him. Even if you were turned in he wouldn't have done anything."

"Gee, thanks for making me feel worse."

"To be fair," Pyrrha blushed as she cleared her throat, "if you had told me earlier I may have turned you in."

"What? Hey…"

Brandon laughed, "you wouldn't now, right? We're all basically family at this point."

"Yeah, I'm just trying to make him feel better," she responded.

"Jee thanks you all. I feel so much better about all of this."

Everyone burst out laughing around the table.

"Well, this is going to be an interesting year."

Nia rolled her eyes, "yeah, yeah. We're in it for the long haul."

….

**Most of Brandon's tech and armor as well as the stuff from his time I'm basing largely around Starcraft's Terrans. His armor specifically is largely based around the Umojan CMC Marine armor used by the Umojan Terrans who sport more sophisticated armor than the standard Dominion Marine. He's supposed to give off a power armor superhero vibe.**

**Also apparently a single CMC suit is actually over a metric ton. I know Grimm are tough but I doubt any but the largest of Grimm could survive the weight of a car being dropped onto their head.**

**While some of the tech is based on Starcraft there is just as much that I make up in my head and that come from Xenoblade itself.**


	5. Fakes and Frauds

**Been a while since I updated this. School's been moved online because of Coronavirus and I had to head back to Korea. (Fun fact, Korea used to be spelled with a C. It is currently agreed upon by many Koreans that Japan was involved in the changing of the letter during the Japanese occupation so that Korea wouldn't precede Japan in the alphabet, but does not currently have any solid proof).**

**I was busy for a while between school and eSports, but I'm relatively free now. I'll try to work on getting more updates out. It's just that I always feel inadequate and my chapters are garbage so I'm afraid to publish them. I'm also kind of inconsistent because I don't write with a solid plan. I usually just fly by the seat of my oversized clown pants (if you don't get that reference you should look up JelloApocalypse's video, "So This is Basically RWBY." It's worth a watch). **

….

"Have you heard?" Nia asked as she stepped into her dorm, fresh out of the shower after a training session.

Brandon was seated at his desk as usual, buried in some kind of science project. After Forever Fall, Nia had taken an interest in the projects that Brandon worked on. Especially as she wanted to figure out what she could do to help. Brandon had given her a crash course on the basics of CAD software as well as computer coding and she had actually made some helpful contributions, noticing things that Brandon hadn't before.

"Heard what?" He asked, barely giving her a glance up from his monitor.

"Blake's gone missing," Nia said, "Ruby's asked us to keep an eye out."

"Huh. What for?"

"Apparently she let slip that she was a Faunus."

"And that triggered her to run away?" Brandon swiveled around to give Nia an incredulous look, "I thought it was obvious she was a Faunus. And before you say anything, I knew before you told me."

"Well apparently it wasn't obvious to her team. Also, she revealed it in an argument with Weiss."

Brandon sighed. In the few months they had known each other, he had gone from looking down on her, to respecting her. He knew what she had gone through. "Don't tell me she also…"

"Implied she was White Fang. Yup."

"Ah." It kind of made sense why she ran away. Still though. It was obvious her team cared about her, why would she not at least try to talk?

"Why would she run? It's not like she's with the White Fang anymore."

"I don't know," she shrugged, "I've openly told you guys and none of you had a problem with it."

"Right?" He shrugged, "anyway. Not much we can do about it."

"You're not worried?"

"I'm worried. I just don't think that finding her is within our ability. She's a cat Faunus-"

"So am I."

"Blending in the alleyways of Vale," he continued after shrugging, "good luck."

"Right…" Nia sighed, "I don't like all of this going down so close to the Vytal festival."

"Same here. But it's their team. We may all be close enough to call each other family at this point, but they're like distant relatives. It's their issue. If they ask us for help, we help, but if not, we let them be."

"You're right," she sighed.

"You know, it feels like this discussion should be the other way around," he chuckled.

"Eh," she shrugged, "I guess it's because I had a connection with Blake. Even though she's mostly cut me off."

"What were you two anyways?"

Nia sighed, "we were close enough to be sisters. She reminded me of my sister in so many ways. Quiet, yet with a fierce fiery side to her. But after I refused to kill over and over again and eventually left the Fang…"

"She hated you afterwards," Brandon finished.

"Yeah, like I've said before."

"Relationships," he sighed.

"Tell me about them."

The two shared a look then started laughing together.

"You know," Nia said after the two calmed down, "I couldn't graduate fast enough when I first got here… but now I don't want to graduate. Because of Salem."

"Nothing is forever," Brandon said, "if she's alive, there's a way to kill her, no matter how powerful she may seem."

"If you say so."

Brandon leaned back and stretched out. "Hard to believe that a semester's already passed."

"I know… midterms are in a week at that."

"You'll do fine," Brandon shrugged.

"Maybe in the combat tests," she sighed, "I've basically been skipping all of our history and tactics lessons."

"I've noticed," he turned around and rummaged around in his drawer. "Here," he tossed her a binder, "those are my notes. Don't lose them."

"What about you?"

"I'm done studying," he shrugged, "I'm as prepared as I can be and an extra week isn't going to help that much at this point. Just give them back to me a day in advance so I can go over the material one more time."

"You got it," she flipped the binder open, "what are you planning on doing?"

"Well as an honor student, I've got harder stuff to do. I think other than tests, I have my combat exam one on one with a professor."

"Hm. Other schools are sending over transfer students as well right? How do you think that's going to work out with exams?"

"Not sure," he responded, "they probably had their exchange students finish their exams before sending them over. It's also not impossible that they would just take them here since they're supposed to audit our classes next semester anyways."

"How would they take them here? Their professors aren't even coming."

"Well actually…" he paused. He turned back to his drawer then pulled out a tablet. He tapped the screen a few times before tossing it to Nia who caught it gracefully.

"What's this?" She asked.

"It's called a map."

"I can see that," she rolled her eyes, "but what are those dots on it?"

"That's Atlas' fleet."

"W-what? How?"

"Radar technology," he said simply.

"But… that's."

"Illegal? Very. I'd probably get it taken away with a slap on the wrist, but nothing more than that so I decided it was worth the risk and so far they haven't detected anything," he shrugged, "besides, this gives me a decent idea of what's on the General's mind."

"Why show me? I used to be a member of the White Fang."

"You're cynical enough for me to trust you," he grinned, "plus four months together as well as Forever Fall-"

Nia winced.

"I've got a good idea of your motives." He frowned, "I've made sure that I can trust people before telling them stuff… especially after…"

"Huh?"

"Oh," he gave an unconvincing smile, "it's nothing."

She gave him an unconvinced look, "sure," she said, deciding not to pry. "But, I have to ask. Since you are part of Ozpin's inner circle, do you happen to know what the Atas military is doing here?"

"I'm not really sure. As far as I'm aware Salem hasn't made any moves to warrant the move out of half the Atlesian fleet. I guess they're just taking precautions to ensure that this festival goes smoothly. This is the largest Vytal Festival in history after all."

"I guess, but what kind of message would that send to the people?"

"It would imply that something's not right. But I think that most people would assume that it's because of the increase in White Fang activity."

"Oh right, the dust robberies."

"Yeah. They're also holding more and more rallies. Law enforcement can't do anything to break up the larger public meetings without the present leaders being wanted criminals or actively promoting violence. Also freedom of speech. As long as they don't cause harm to others with what they say, it would be wrong to stop them."

"Yeah but they're supporting violent measures to-"

"So?" Brandon interrupted, "I don't necessarily agree with them but history has proven that some form of violence is the only way to make people hear your message. For every Martin Luther King, there has to be a Malcolm X to make the peaceful talks work."

"For every who?"

Shit. Brandon frowned, "nothing."

"Hm. I feel like there's still a lot that you're withholding from me."

"I…"

She sighed, "whatever. Just tell me when you feel like you're ready to."

"Y-yeah."

"Anyways… what are you working on?" Nia asked, changing the subject.

"Stuff for the combat test. My methods may work on other students, but they won't work on a professional. So… I'm planning on bamboozling him with a bunch of taser stuff," he chuckled, "planning on hitting him or her with as many things to paralyze them as possible."

"So you're going to fight dirty," Nia rolled her eyes, "why am I somehow surprised and not surprised at the same time. For someone who claims to have been in the military, you sure don't act like it."

"Well… physically I'm relatively weak. At least in comparison to the people at this school. I got through most things with my brain. So after it was clear regular boot camp wasn't going to work, they decided to give me a one on one instructor and he taught me to fight with essentially hit and run tactics. If I was to continue with my service, I would have been put into special operations."

"Vale special ops?" She asked, "I didn't even know that was a thing. I know about Atlas' ace ops."

"Special ops are slightly different from the ace ops," Brandon explained, "the ace ops are the strongest huntsmen in Atlas. That makes them highly effective in almost every field. The special operatives teams are actual military special ops. Usually good for observation, covert operations, assassinations, etc. They usually aren't huntsmen. Just really skilled soldiers."

"And you were assigned to be part of this special ops group."

"Yeah."

"Interesting," she said, "what about that fancy armor of yours?"

"It's Atlas tech," he said, the lies coming easily now, "they gave some of these suits. Ozpin pulled some strings to let me keep one."

"That doesn't seem that stealthy."

"Different situations call for different customizations," he responded.

"Then why haven't I seen anything like this at Atlas."

"Trial run."

"And this isn't one of yours?"

"No," he said. Which was technically true. Though it wasn't Atlas tech either. It was his world's tech that he had modified. He did have the blueprints for it now though, thanks to the data banks in the space stations positioned in orbit all around the world. This was the standard armor of the Empire. The Sol Republic used similar armor, mostly stolen sets. Usually they modded the armor to be lighter with more focus on mobility.

He usually wasn't so good at the whole jump pack thing that the regular troops used so he was assigned to more specialized strike teams. Most of his battles were raids against facilities where the higher bulk and armor helps against automated defenses and larger groups of enemy soldiers. He wasn't afraid to put on a jump pack when a mission called for it though.

"Hm, if you say so," nia said, clearly unconvinced.

"It really isn't," Brandon insisted, "I've modded it but it's not my design or creation."

"And you're sure you didn't work on military tech?" She asked skeptically.

"I know my way around a weapon. They might be built differently, but the same principle applies. You're still killing something while trying to keep yourself from being killed. Different techniques but similar designs," he explained, "Grimm requires different designs to humans. Military armor is designed to stop bullets and energy. Huntsman armor is designed to stop Grimm claws and sheer power. Different design elements but both are to protect the user. Weapons are basically the same but are usually different power scales. There's a reason why my gun is so powerful."

A small lie. The guns were so powerful because the weapon needed to punch through highly protective armor. The armor was also good enough to defend against the Grimm because it was rated to stop gauss rounds. Arms war between arms and armor. Of course nuclear weaponry was out of the question. They as rebels couldn't nuke the country they were trying to save, and the government couldn't nuke their own country.

Which was the main reason why gravity weapons were developed. Powerful weapons with no long lasting consequences and a blast zone that can be easily controlled. They were a no brainer as the next step in powerhouse weaponry. Gauss weaponry, of course, had already been essentially mastered.

"Is that a repurposed military gun then?"

"Yeah, essentially a stock weapon."

"Uh, that's not a stock weapon," Nia said, "I know what a stock Valean, or stock Atlesian weapon looks like."

"Stock special ops."

"Look, I know every weapon in the military. I've done enough raids on even off the map bases to have seen them all.

"I uh-"

"I know you want to keep some things secret for longer, but if you're only going to give me half truths and false stories, this partner thing isn't going to work out well."

"I know I know. I just… I…"

Nia sighed, "if you're going to lie you need to do it better or I'll eventually start doubting everything that comes out of your mouth. Just get whatever it is that's bugging you figured out."

Brandon nodded, a guilty look in his eye, "I really wish I could tell you, but I've already told you much more than what Ozpin would be happy with."

"Does he know?" Nia asked.

"Know what?"

"That you've told me about Salem?"

Brandon shrugged, "kind of? I mentioned it but I told him I've only mentioned a bigger threat to you. Nothing more."

"So you didn't even tell him I know about Salem and her abilities?" She asked.

"Yeah, I played it off as accidentally letting a little bit slip," he coughed, "he was okay with it because the plan was to tell you at some point anyways."

"And when would that be?"

"After you all graduated. I didn't want to bring you all into this mess but luck of the draw," he sighed, "every one of you, team RWBY, team JNPR, and us, team RPBN, all of you have some kind of association or power that would have had Ozpin wanting you in the fight."

"I don't like this," Nia said, "why keep this all a secret?"

"Do you know how much negativity there would be if people knew about Salem?"

"Not civilians," she rolled her eyes, "why don't other huntsmen know about this?"

"A few do… people trusted by Ozpin."

"Then why you? Why do you, basically a nobody, no offense," she said, "know about this? You're smart and talented for sure, but relative to pro huntsmen and engineers, nothing special."

She had him cornered now and they both knew it.

"You wouldn't believe me," he tried.

"You already said that. Give me another reason, a good reason, and I'll back off," she hissed, "no lies, no deceit. I'd rather you keep things secret than lie to me."

"I…" he paused, "I don't have anything," he admitted. Technically nothing about his past was classified. But who would believe him? His story wasn't believable in the slightest, and even if it was, she would despise him for his part in the creation of this world.

"Okay then," she snapped, "start talking."

"I don't know what you mean…" he tried.

"Why are you in the loop? Why isn't the rest of the world? Why are we getting dragged into this?" She narrowed her eyes, "what makes you so special?"

"I've already told you. I was a student studying engineering at the University of Vale. I was going to be a weapons developer like my parents. I made innovations to weapons so when I was conscripted, Ozpin gave me an offer. When I accepted he gave me the rundown and asked if I still wanted to attend Beacon. Something about how there's no shame in withdrawing now. I said I'd stay so he gave me honor student status-"

Nia's ears twitched before she slammed a fist into the wall. "Why do you keep on lying to me? I get figuring crap out but you're feeding me the same bullshit over and over again."

Whatever Brandon was about to say died off. In all their time as a team, he had not heard her swear once. She had a temper, sure, but cursing seemed to be a major no for her.

"It's not like it's hard to tell that you were lying," she continued, "I'm a Faunus for crying out loud. I can hear it when your breathing becomes unsteady, your heart rate changes, the little inflections in your voice changing. I was putting up with it but I thought you would finally come clean."

"Nia… I-"

"I'm not taking this shit anymore, tell Ozpin I'm not going to be part of his damned crusade." She stormed out of the room.

"Wait, Nia…" he sighed in frustration as the door slammed behind her.

Rex poked his head in, "what did you do to her?"

"Why don't you go ask her," he snapped.

"Whoa, I just wanted to make sure this isn't something big."

Brandon grimaced, "sorry. It's just not a good time."

"Yeah, I can tell," he said flatly, "but that's why I'm interjecting right now. Knowing you, you're just going to let it bottle up, and with winter break coming up, that's going to mean disaster for this team."

"I…"

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"Yeah. But this isn't something you can fix. This is between me and Nia."

"Right," Rex gave him a stare, "if this isn't resolved by the time next semester rolls around, we're having a serious talk," he said, giving Brandon a glare to cement his point before leaving.

"This is going to be a fun few weeks." He groaned.

* * *

Brandon stretched out and laid down on the grass outside the lecture hall.

Finals were a nightmare but they were over now. He had even performed satisfactorily during the combat testing without his armor so everything was done and dusted.

Though his team was currently not in the best of shapes. Both teams RWBY and JNPR could tell that something was wrong but respected their privacy enough to not invade.

Brandon shook his head. Nia was the one being unreasonable, even going as far as to sleep on the couch and completely avoiding him, only interacting with him in single words and only if absolutely necessary.

That stung. He wasn't really sure why, but it did.

He sighed. He didn't really have anywhere he could go as he didn't have any friends or family. Nia had already left the day before, her finals having already been completed. He hadn't told Rex or Pyra anything so they had left as well.

He was planning on just staying in the dorms, but because of the increased White Fang activity in the city, he had decided to check it out on his own so he had used his stipend pay to grab a room in the city for cheap for the two weeks classes were out.

Ozpin wasn't too happy about it but couldn't do anything about it because Brandon was the one paying. Ozpin had just wished him luck when he was told.

It may not be the most logical decision but there was just a feeling that he couldn't shake off. Something just didn't feel right. What business did the White Fang have stealing so much dust? Their activity never suggested that they needed any of that kind of amount of dust.

"Heya, whatcha doing?" Long blonde hair and a face appeared overhead.

"What's up Yang?" Brandon nodded, or well, the best nod he could give while laying down.

"Just aced my finals!" she bragged, "I bet I did better than you!"

"I'll bet," Brandon laughed. Yang held out a hand and Brandon took it and pulled himself up.

"You heading home today?"

"Yeah, Ruby and I are heading back in a few hours. What about you?"

"I've got a place in the city," Brandon said.

"Oh right, your parents are rich."

Brandon looked at her for a second, "kind of? I wouldn't say rich."

Yang blew air out between her lips, "not rich my ass. They make huntsmen weapons. One of those is worth more than what most people make in a year."

"Yeah, and your dad is a huntsman, which-"

Yang held up a hand, "correction, he was a huntsman. He's a teacher now, which means he gets paid in peanuts."

Brandon rolled his eyes, "you have a house on Patch, that is worth way more than a dinky apartment in the city."

"Are you kidding? I would love to live in the city… hey," she sidled up beside him, "why don't you let me come over at some point?"

"Uh, let me think about that, no." he gave her a flat look.

"Why not?" she whined.

"Because I live in a one room apartment. I got the room, my parents got a couch bed to share."

"What?"

"Rent is like five hundred thousand dolla- lien per month for a one bed apartment. We can't afford much more than that. Before you ask, we only sell one weapon every few months and life in the city isn't cheap, but we need to be there so my parents can get to the workshop."

"I'm curious, how long does it take to make a weapon?"

"A few months. And that's usually a minimum." He rolled his shoulders.

"Whoa, why's that?"

"Because everyone wants a different weapon. It would be a different story if we just had to mass produce one design, but we have to engineer a brand new weapon every customer."

"Ah, gotcha." She nodded sagely.

Brandon laughed and Yang joined in right after.

"But seriously," she said, "you can at least show me around the city right? Pretty please?"

"Oh, can I see your parent's workshop?" Ruby chimed in as she suddenly approached them.

Dammit, he could never say no to that face.

"Alright, fine," he surrendered, "but you're going to have to give me a few days notice so I can tell my parents to see when they have a day off."

"Yay!" they both exclaim.

"Not you," he said to Yang, "I'll show you around the workshop if you want, not the city."

"Boo."

Brandon rolled his eyes again, "you probably know the city better than I do, I don't get out a lot." He gave her a sly look, "while you go out drinking almost every weekend."

"Hey, I'm old enough to drink. I can do what I want."

"No you're not," he muttered. Different world, different rules he supposed.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah, that didn't sound like nothing buddy."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to tell you what I said."

Yang snorted, "whatever man. See ya."

Brandon gave her a two finger salute.

He turned around when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Yes?" he turned to find himself face to face Blake of all people.

"We need to talk."

"Uh, why?" They acknowledged each other's existence, being on sister teams, but were never particularly close.

She narrowed her eyes, "you know why."

"I really don't, but we could go grab drinks or something? My treat."

"Fine."

* * *

"Is this about Nia?" Brandon asked as he sat down, sliding a drink toward her.

"No… unless she's part of the White Fang."

Brandon rolled his eyes, "it's pretty obvious you two know each other," he said in a low voice, "or at least knew each other at some point. I know that you know that she is no longer part of the White Fang."

Blake glared.

"Also," he lowered his voice even further, "what is this exactly about the White Fang."

Blake took a long sip of her coffee. "I've done some digging on you."

It was Brandon's turn to glare, "why? And what exactly have you found."

"Why? Because I couldn't help but notice that there were some inconsistencies in your story, they were pretty obvious. And I've found that neither you, nor your parents really exist."

Brandon shrugged, "and what does that prove?"

"And yet," she ignored him, "you've told our teams that you're heading back to your parent's place for break, while renting a place for the two weeks, right in the middle of a hotspot of White Fang activity."

Brandon blinked before realization dawned. "You think I'm White Fang? Seriously? I am very much human."

"Not every Faunus trait is obvious."

"I haven't been keeping up with the news because of finals, the White Fang activity is purely coincidental. As for my parents, what am I supposed to tell you? That I was actually homeless for most of my life?" he shrugged, "It's easier for people to believe that." All of which was technically not true. "Ozpin noticed my skill in both weapon making and military service so he gave me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"How did you get into college while homeless?"

Brandon tilted his head, "I forged stuff. My grades were legit though."

"So you're telling me that a kid managed to falsify official government forms and information, all while attending school, while homeless, where he also had to forge official forms."

Brandon shrugged again, "not everyone on the streets are heartless. I know some people. Is that it? I have to go and pack so…"

"If you're not White Fang, then you're looking into them. This is too big of a coincidence."

"And so what if I am?"

"I want in."


	6. Fighting the White Fang

Chapter 6: Fighting the White Fang

**So kind of a warning, there will be stuff in this chapter referring to previous chapters but with certain events changed, the main one being that Brandon lost his initial spar vs Pyrrha. I need to go back and change it.**

**My reasoning for that change is mostly that even though Brandon was a soldier, he was never part of a big organized army and was instead part of a rebellion, meaning that while his close quarters combat would be good, it would be extremely imperfect with some glaring flaws that wouldn't exist if he had received a formal education/training. His victories came from careful planning, strategy, positioning, and momentum in gunfights, not going mano a mano with the enemy.**

…**.**

"What are they doing?" Blake muttered beside Brandon.

Brandon elected to not respond, knowing that she was mostly talking to herself.

"This doesn't make any sense," she moved to stand but stopped when Brandon placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Remember, we're just here to investigate," he reminded her, not taking his eyes off the activity, "we're not police so we don't have the authority to get involved. If anything, we'd get arrested."

Blake gave him a look but lowered herself to the floor.

"I don't know why you don't want me to call the police either," Brandon said, "they're getting away with this right under our noses."

"I told you it's so they don't make any real changes to their plans. If they know that someone can tip off the police, they'll make their operation much more hidden."

"And just charging in there won't make them change their plans?" Brandon rolled his eyes, "maybe think things through first. Plus, calling the police on them won't necessarily tip them off, charging in headstrong would. There's a difference between a huntsman finding them and a civilian finding them."

"You're right…" she let out a frustrated sigh.

"If I'm being honest, this doesn't feel right. I get that we're doing this to catch the bigger fish along the line but letting these guys go free…"

"I know, I know."

"And I'm not like your Schnee teammate, I can't just reimburse the store owner because I neglected to call law enforcement-"

"I get it, alright?" she snapped before calming back down, "I just don't know what to do right now."

Brandon sighed, "well we've determined that they are following a pattern. What next boss?"

"Okay, I've got the recording down. We should probably head back."

"Freeze!" a gruff voice said from behind the pair. The two did freeze at the sound of a gun being cocked.

Brandon raised his hands above his head and turned around slowly. It was a low level White Fang goon.

"Stay where you are!"

Brandon rolled his eyes before performing a basic disarming technique and slamming an elbow into his temple. The terrorist was knocked out cold.

"Rookie mistake, moved in too close." Brandon scoffed before kneeling down to roll him over.

"What are you doing?" Blake asked as Brandon took off his backpack and rummaged around.

"Covering our asses," he responded, pulling out a bottle and forcing a large quantity of alcohol down the Faunus' throat.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" she demanded.

Brandon ignored her until he finished up. "I'm making sure that we don't get caught, "If that's too much for you or is breaking your 'moral code', this op isn't for you. I've been ordered to do much worse during my time in the military, and I wasn't even in combat."

Of course he wasn't going to share any of it with her. Assassinations, espionage, sabotage, the works. And of course the straight up murder in combat. While he respected the White Fang, respect wasn't going to stop him from doing what had to be done. What had to be done, in this case, was figuring out their real goals. This branch of the White Fang had to be a splinter group. Their organization, while being a violent group, was never one about mass destruction or killings.

They got their message across by fighting counter protesters and police officers sent to detain them, on top of the occasional SDC raid. Nothing to indicate that they needed enough dust to equal the power of several daisy cutters.

These raids were also getting more and more daring, this one attacking and disabling several Atlas military robots, despite the fact that the White Fang normally avoided them at all costs.

Brandon pulled his backpack back on, "you can either let me do my thing and keep us undetected, or you can protect your morals. I'm going to choose the path that's least likely to get me killed."

He was about to leave then stopped when something caught his eye. "Hey… wait… are they taking those robots? Why are they taking the… it's Atlas tech," Brandon's eyes widened, "they're planning on raiding Atlas?"

"No… that has to be wrong. There's no way they would do something like that."

Brandon grimaced, "we don't know for sure yet. But if we do learn at some point that they are planning on attacking Atlesian troops, I can't stay quiet about this, got it?"

Blake nodded.

* * *

It was already their last day before they had to head back to the dorms and get resituated for classes.

They had yet to find any meaningful information, just that they were stealing absurd amounts of dust and Atlas tech. All signs pointed to an assault on Atlas. There was no way they had his level of information and knew that Atlas' army was coming for the Vytal Festival.

Blake refused to accept this conclusion, however, and insisted that they observe one more dust robbery.

Brandon was lying on his back, relaxing, while Blake was the one really focusing on the robbery.

"What?"

Brandon sighed and opened an eye… to find that Blake wasn't next to him anymore. He looked around frantically only to see Blake down at the docks, holding her sword to the throat of none other than Roman Torchwick.

Brandon groaned but was already moving, his rifle unfolding into full form in his hands. He kept himself low and hidden, sneaking around the back.

"-and I, are going on a joint business venture."

Brandon snarled, watching Torchwick lower his cane, knowing what kind of weapon it was.

"Watch out!" he exclaimed, breaking his cover.

Blake jumped backwards just as Torchwick pulled the trigger and the White Fang immediately opened fire on him. Brandon ducked under cover, returning fire himself.

Compared to battle hardened veterans of war, these terrorists weren't very skilled, leaving openings everywhere, allowing themselves to be picked off by the precision shooting of Brandon while they were basically blind firing, hoping to be able to hit something.

Blake was fighting Torchwick in the distance, and losing, her talent significantly overpowered by Torchwick's experience. Brandon scowled but was unable to do anything with the White Fang troops pinning him down.

Said troops had at least figured out how to take cover so they weren't complete morons. They were still terrible tactically of course, positioning themselves in locations that he wouldn't have gone for even in the worst situations.

The only reason why he couldn't do anything was because a grenade would light the entire place up in a massive explosion because of the sheer quantity of dust surrounding them.

Torchwick continued to force Blake backwards, one step at a time. He was clearly more aware of his surroundings as he maneuvered her into a corner.

Brandon tried to move around his own adversaries to try to give her some support, firing off some potshots at the thief, but was largely unsuccessful, especially as several more Bullheads landed and even more White Fang spilled out.

While Brandon had his armor revealed to Nia, she was also the only one who had gotten Brandon to spill the beans about the imminent threat looming above their heads. She was also the only one to know his "story," which at least explained a few things. If he used it now, there could be serious repercussions later. He also couldn't bring down any kind of military force from either his own forces, or requesting backup from Atlas. But if their lives were at stake…

His decision was made for him when he heard some yelling in the distance. It looks like gun fire at the docks drew some attention. The White Fang members did understand the implications, and started attacking him with more rigor, almost making suicidally risky moves. He was able to hold them off from his vantage point before because they were all pinned down, but now they were pushing out.

He started backing up, afraid of being overrun, when a hail of bullets came from behind. The Valean police had arrived in force and moved in to support him.

"Huntsman!" One of them called, "go help your friend. We'll deal with the Fang."

Brandon nodded and moved to support Blake. Torchwick frowned, he was now outnumbered and outgunned.

"Well then kiddos," he mocked, "it's been fun," he glanced back, confirming that some of the non combatants had been loading up dust containers, "but I think playtime is over." He sprang back and fired at a crane, taking its base out and toppling it, forcing both Brandon and Blake to jump and roll out of the way.

"Until next time," he gave a jeering wave as he boarded the Bullhead.

Brandon snarled and fired a parting shot but the round simply deflected off the closing doors and the transport ship took off.

Meanwhile, the police officers were wrapping up with the Fang members that were able to board the Bullheads escaping but it was every man for himself and those left behind were rounded up and restrained.

Brandon tilted his head in frustration but shouldered his rifle.

"Apologies," someone cleared their throat behind them.

Brandon spun around, "yes office…" the words died in his throat.

"My name is Morag Ladair, Special Inquisitor of the Atlesian military. This is really just a formality but I'm afraid I must ask to see your huntsmen licenses." She held out a hand expectantly.

"Sorry ma'am, but neither of us are official huntsmen yet, we're still in training at Beacon academy."

She frowned, "you two are aware that operating to stop criminals without proper authority is a serious offense, correct?" A sigh, "but if you two are students, punishment is to be left to the academy. I'll have to make a few calls, you two are to come with me."

* * *

"You have been cleared," Morag told Brandon after a lengthy conversation on her scroll.

Brandon stood up, "what about Blake?" The two had been separated when they had arrived at the station. Morag had taken him while Blake had been escorted away by a man named Captain Padraig.

"Your Faunus friend is safe from criminal charges as she is a student of Beacon as well."

Brandon took a breath but was interrupted, "however, we will keep her here for questioning. As a former member of the White Fang, there is much intel she can give us."

"But-"

"Again, your friend is in no danger," she reassured, "she is currently under immunity from Beacon and will be granted an official pardon at the end of the year, provided she does not break the law any further. She, and yourself, have been given a special exception this time requested specially by headmaster Ozpin himself."

"One question, if I could ask."

"I will answer to the best of my ability."

"Why are you in Vale? And since you're here, why aren't the Ace Ops or other special forces or specialists here?"

Morag regarded him with some respect, "The only reason I am going to tell you this is because you are former military covert operations. I am here investigating the sudden increase in White Fang activity as well as their spontaneous partnership with the criminal underground in Vale. The rest is classified and I am unable to tell you more about our special forces."

Brandon nodded, "thank you for indulging me."

"My partner, Brighid, is waiting in the lobby. She will drive you back to Beacon."

Brandon gave her a short and small bow before leaving. She made a mental note to keep an eye out for him. A former special ops and current honor student at Beacon, not to mention he had some form of connection with both General Ironwood and his Specialist commander, Winter Schnee. He was one to look out for, maybe it would be possible to recruit him into the military given that many huntsmen graduates opted for military jobs or private firms. Not many chose to be independent contractors.

* * *

Of course, Brandon wouldn't be joining the Atlesian military, although Morag didn't know it. He would be "hired" by Beacon after he "graduated."

He had asked to stop by his rented room and gathered his stuff, as well as Blake's.

He checked back into the dorms and headed to his wing. He dropped Blake's stuff off in front of her door and texted her what he had done before heading into his own room and collapsed onto his bed.

He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

He woke up late into the day, the sunlight glaring into his room. He yawned as he sat up and rolled his shoulders, sighing as several joints popped. He swung his legs over the side and froze to see Nia glaring at him.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"Sorry?" Brandon tried his best to put on an innocent face.

"Last night you bloody idiot," she snapped angrily.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Nia stalked up to him angrily and grabbed his shirt and pulled him up, "so you're telling me you don't know what happened at the docks last night? The White Fang raid? The two students of Beacon being there? It was plastered all over the damn news. There was even video footage from a passerby. Even though the footage was spotty, that rifle of yours and Blake are pretty recognizable even if Ozpin didn't tell us." she tilted her head, "so tell me what the hell you idiots were thinking."

"I- I-"

"Well?"

Brandon angrily shook her arm off, "what the fuck do you want me to say? My business is my business and doesn't involve you."

She took a step back.

"Oh I'm fucking sorry that _I_ did what _I _felt was necesary during _my _time," he continued ranting, "I-"

She slapped him, stunning him into silence, "it becomes my business when it puts the life of one of my team, one of my _friends,_ in danger! Get your head out of your arse and think about something other than yourself and your mission for a change."

"What… I thought-"

"Just because I'm pissed off doesn't stop us from being teammates, or even friends for that matter. Rex and Pyra were worried sick when they heard the news. They're checking to see if Blake is alive after they confirmed that you were fine. Even if you didn't want to talk to me, what about them? Rex might as well be your brother and Pyra's a mother to all of us."

Brandon let out a soft chuckle at that.

"Don't you laugh at this," Nia said while struggling to not smile herself.

His chuckle turned into full blown laughing and Nia lost her composure and started laughing herself.

"She really is, isn't she?"

"That's not the point," she paused then sighed. She then pulled him into a hug.

Brandon froze.

"Just don't do something that stupid again, buckethead, you hear me?"

"Buckethead?"

"Yes, because you're a buckethead."

"Of course I am," he rolled his eyes before giving a cheeky grin, "milady."

Nia giggled softly, her face still pressed against his chest, "I think I like that."

"So we're good?"

"No we are not good," her muffled voice said, "but we are friends, don't you dare forget that."

"Look, I just can't tell you everything yet… But… look, we weren't intending on raiding the White Fang raid. She just charged in the moment she… the moment she spotted Torchwick." His eyebrows knit together.

"Huh? What is it?" she asked as she pulled away.

"She wanted to intervene before but she just went ballistic at the sight of the criminal."

"Well don't look at me," she said, "she was high up on the White Fang food chain being the founder's daughter. I was barely more than a grunt before I left. We spoke maybe three times."

"If you two weren't close, why did she seem so offended when she saw you here?"

She shrugged, "probably because the majority of what I did before deciding to better myself was to inhibit the Fang as much as I could outside of my day job, and because I was based in Vale, which meant that I would target the branch under her specifically."

"You what?" Brandon's mouth hung open slightly, "and you're the one telling me to not pull stupid shit?"

"I'm not stupid enough to do that anymore buckethead," Nia rolled her eyes, "that was what I would have done several years ago. And that's beside the point."

"I got it, Nia, I got it. I'll check in with Rex and Pyra."

"You'd better."

"You got it," he gave her one last smirk before leaving, "milady."

* * *

Pyra had given him the verbal lashing of a lifetime. Much worse than what Nia did.

She really was a mother hen. Rex had just stood to the side, struggling to keep a straight face while chiming in once in a while.

Pyra finished by pulling him into a hug.

Brandon blushed.

"Just don't worry us like that again."

"Yes ma'am."

"And don't call me ma'am either, makes me feel old," she huffed.

* * *

Classes resumed per normal, with one exception, the transfer students were now with them, auditing their classes. Brandon disliked the system. It gave the students at the other academies a free semester to essentially slack off.

But he couldn't do anything about it so, whatever.

A prick from Haven had already annoyed him. Some kid with silver hair and gun boots? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? He was breaking rules and conduct on top of immediately giving up immediately after challenging Pyrrha.

At least he had tried against Pyrrha, even though he knew he was outclassed.

What an asshole.

His team seemed to be at least polite, if brutal with their combat.

Like their leader, Cinder, had definitely left her impression by wiping the floor with him easily after she had requested to spar with the honor student specifically. It looked like she had barely put in any effort. At least with other students at Beacon he had a chance to see their combat style and have some prep time. Versus her… not so much, and it showed how poorly he did without preparation, at least in one on one combat.

He had been confident his team could have made it decently far into the tournament, but after that little taste of the other schools… he wasn't so sure anymore.

It was especially worrying seeing more students from other academies. Two girls from Atlas stood out especially, Poppi and Penny. Those two systematically annihilated any competition they had. Poppi had managed to even take one over Nia and Penny had beaten Ren.

The only real standout he saw from Vacuo was Zeke and Pandoria. The two were partners and were extremely capable in combat, both alone and partnered in dual spars. They shared a weapon, almost like Rex and Pyra, except it was a combination between a large staff and a massive blade which could be separated and wielded individually. He had been shocked when Zeke had grabbed a handle built into the center of the blade and used it that way. The blade never separated from the handle even when used strenuously.

He was assuming it was something to do with one of their semblances.

His team, of course, weren't slouches themselves, especially the three that weren't him, but even combined they could barely take down Pyrrha. She had become a real monster under professional huntsman guidance.

He had been able to at least hold his own before but now… honestly, she looked like she could be good enough to win the entire first year tournament.

"Holy shite," Nia muttered beside him as they watched Pyrrha one vs one the entirety of team RWBY, "what kind of drugs has she been taking?"

"You've started swearing a lot more," Brandon noted.

"Hm," she put a finger to her chin in an exasperated manner, "I wonder who I know that somehow manages to slip in a swear word every other sentence."

"Fair point," he dipped his head, "but, uh, didn't you say something about your sister?"

She shrugged, "she didn't like cursing but she cursed like a sailor anyways."

"Ah, one of those," he chuckled, "sounds like she had a fiery personality."

"More so than me, believe it or not," she laughed.

Goodwitch sighed, "Mr. Hunter, Miss Starlet, how many times must I warn you to shut up before it gets through your thick skulls?"

The class erupted into laughter.

"The only reason why you two are not receiving detentions is because of our guests here, do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good, now back to analyzing Miss Nikos'-"

The two shared a look before giggling to themselves. They constantly got reprimanded by Goodwitch, but she never doled out any actual punishment. The reason why was pretty clear, even though several students had called them out for it, they couldn't change Brandon's honor student status.

"You know, I don't think we're even going to get past the first round at this rate," Brandon let out a breath.

"Depends on who we match up with. We're better than the average team, no?"

"Sure," he chuckled, "let's go with that. You may be almost as good as Pyrrha, but you're only good alone. Rex and Pyra as a duo can beat almost any other duo, but only as a duo. I can get people with surprise factor and tactics, but as soon as they figure out my style, I stop winning." He shrugged, "we have our own personal strengths, but we don't work nearly as cohesively as other teams do after the four months so far.

"We could probably get past round one, right? It's unlikely that we'll get one of our friends." She did some quick calculations on her notebook, "or one of the good teams from the other academies."

"Unlikely doesn't mean impossible. I would hate to have to fight team RWBY or team JNPR. Mostly because they're our friends," he drummed his fingers on his desk, "but also because they would annihilate us."

"Do you really think it would be that bad?"

"Yes," he said point blank.

"Have you no faith?"

"Oh I have faith," he grinned, "it's just that I have more faith in the other teams."

"Jerk."

Brandon chuckled, "well, in the words of Pyrrha, who's probably going to wreck us, let's see where the chips fall."

….

**The conflict between him and Nia was resolved fairly quickly, admittedly, but I'm not an author like Coeur Al Aran - I am not nearly as talented and this is probably (definitely) not going to be a 160 chapter epic. I am going to put in more conflict later on, but that's planned for much later on. Plus laughing is a great way to fix things. I get into fights with my sister all the time but sometimes all it takes is for one person to say something funny and we forget what we were fighting about.**

**I've changed the story a little bit, rather than Sun finding Blake when she ran, Rex and Pyra were recruited into helping, so they found her a lot faster. Therefore she didn't witness the first robbery with Torchwick.**

**Also, more Xenoblade characters, yay! Introducing Morag Ladair, Special Inquisitor, which gives her essentially the same authority as General Ironwood, but in a different field. While no such position exists in RWBY, I wanted to keep the Xenoblade characters relatively true to their game counterparts. **

**I thought it would be kind of funny making Zeke and Pandoria come from Vacuo seeing as technically both Vacuo and Tantal are both desert wastelands. (BTW the definition of desert is the low amount of precipitation it receives. Antarctica is classified as a desert for that reason.) This… actually kind of makes it so that Morag and Zeke switch the environments they're from lol. Eh, it's not like Vacuo would have a strong organized military and Zeke dresses like Sun does so… **

**Also Tora is there as Poppi's partner… as a human. He's just not a super standout combatant and no one knows that Poppi is artificial, so Brandon doesn't take much notice of him. He and Pietro Polendina had different takes on how to create an AI huntsman but both succeeded in their own way, one with Poppi, the other with Penny.**

**Shameless stream plug twitch . tv / sparklehandss for some starcraft 2 content. Swing by to say hi to me live.**


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